Flywire (FLYW) laid out its long-term financial framework at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on September 10, setting a target of $1 billion in revenue and 30% adjusted EBITDA margins, both achievable through organic growth alone.
CFO Cosmin emphasized that the targets were deliberately constructed without relying on acquisitions. "The $1 billion and 30%, it is an organic target and it is our usual approach of being prudent and data-dependent overall," he said. "This financial framework was built to withstand a tough macro. It was not built to assume it gets better."
Organic operating expenses are growing at single-digit rates, with general and administrative costs accounting for roughly one-third of the total. The company expects its transformation investment to peak in 2027, after which operating costs should remain relatively flat.
Project ADAPT, Flywire's 18-month digital transformation initiative, is approximately halfway through its course. The program aims to consolidate 20 to 40 separate systems onto fewer platforms and generate a 20% to 30% productivity improvement through foundational data infrastructure and process redesign. "The hardest part is org and process changes... redesign processes, which is usually the hardest part of any transformation," Cosmin noted.
Flywire also reported that its Sertifi acquisition is running ahead of plan, with payment monetization serving as the primary source of outperformance. At the time of the deal, management identified a $3 billion monetization opportunity split 70% software and 30% payments. Roughly $2.5 billion of that opportunity remains, and gross margin expansion from payment monetization is expected to flow through 2024 and 2025. The acquisition also added 42 international locations to Flywire's footprint.
On the education side, Flywire guided for low single-digit full-year growth in its U.S. education business, assuming a 30% decline in visas. Performance during peak enrollment has tracked in line with or slightly above expectations. The U.K. education business, which follows an academic-year cycle, saw visa numbers down more than 30% in the first quarter but only about 11% in July. The company currently processes at least 90% of student payment volumes at roughly 20 schools, up from 12 a year earlier. Domestic student financial systems and collections remain the fastest-growing slice of the U.S. portfolio, with Flywire signing three new U.S. SFS deals in the second quarter carrying double the annual recurring revenue of the same quarter in 2025.
Travel has grown to approximately the same scale as the U.K. education business and now exceeds U.S. education, buoyed by Sertifi's luxury and hospitality capabilities and strong momentum in Asia—including Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan—and Europe. The B2B healthcare vertical returned to growth following a marquee Cleveland Clinic win, though management cautioned that growth will run below company averages going forward as the long sales cycles associated with that deal come into play.
Non-Big-Four education markets grew more than 30% in the first half of the year and now account for a low-teens share of total revenue. Across education and travel, the vast majority of clients are enterprise customers generating over $100,000 in annual revenue, with churn below 1%.
