Locafy posts 31% revenue growth as Poseidon AEO platform nears launch

Locafy Limited (Nasdaq: LCFY), a Perth-based SaaS company focused on location-based search and answer engine optimisation, reported total operating revenue of AUD 3.1 million for the nine months ended 31 March 2026, up 31% from AUD 2.4 million in the comparable prior-year period. Subscription revenue, which now accounts for the vast majority of the top line, rose 36% to AUD 3.0 million, driven primarily by uptake of its Localizer product through the partner sales channel.

Monthly recurring revenue reached AUD 399,000 in the fiscal third quarter, a 53% increase year-on-year and a 9.2% sequential rise from the second quarter. Net loss narrowed to AUD 2.2 million (AUD 1.16 per share) from AUD 3.5 million (AUD 2.19 per share) in the year-ago period, a 36% improvement, as total operating expenses fell 13% to AUD 5.2 million. The expense reduction was largely driven by an 80% fall in share-based payments, which dropped to AUD 278,000 from AUD 1.4 million, with the prior-year figure characterised as non-recurring.

Poseidon in focus

Locafy's stated near-term priority is the July 2026 launch of Poseidon, described by the company as an advanced answer engine optimisation platform built for marketing agencies and small business owners. Chief executive Gavin Burnett said the platform is "on track to launch in July 2026" and is positioned to help businesses manage visibility across traditional search engines, AI-driven discovery surfaces, online advertising, review management and PR distribution from a single interface.

The Poseidon positioning reflects a broader shift in the search industry. Generative AI features embedded in Google Search, Microsoft Bing and a growing number of third-party AI assistants are changing how consumers find local businesses, pushing vendors to adapt SEO tooling to retrieve and surface content in large language model outputs as well as conventional ranked links. Locafy is framing AEO as a distinct discipline sitting alongside traditional SEO, a narrative that several specialist vendors and a growing number of agency-side practitioners have begun to adopt.

Market context and competitive landscape

The local SEO and digital-marketing SaaS market is populated by a range of well-established platforms, including Yext, Moz, BrightLocal and Semrush, as well as a growing cohort of AI-native startups building answer-optimisation tooling from scratch. Locafy's competitive differentiator, as articulated in the release, is the combination of traditional local SEO and emerging AEO in a single managed platform aimed at the agency and SMB segments, where price sensitivity is high and consolidated tooling carries tangible value.

The company's financials remain early-stage in character. Accumulated losses stood at AUD 52.4 million as at 31 March 2026, and cash at period end was AUD 1.4 million, supported in large part by AUD 2.8 million raised through share issuance in the nine-month period. Operating cash flow was marginally positive at AUD 55,000 for the period, though the company continued to invest AUD 1.3 million in capitalised development costs. With MRR trending upward, Locafy will need Poseidon to generate meaningful new subscription volume to sustain the revenue trajectory and reduce its dependence on equity funding. Investors will look to the platform's commercial launch metrics and any disclosed agency partnership agreements as the key signals in the coming quarters.