DFIN’s first quarter financial results, announced yesterday, indicate that our transformation into a software-centric company is shifting into high gear. Software sales represented 33% of total net sales in the quarter, the highest level in DFIN’s history. In addition, year-over-year sales growth for our software offerings was 15.8%, the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit software sales growth.
I am especially encouraged by the strong performance of our recurring compliance- and regulatory-driven software products. Compliance software offerings grew 19%, in aggregate, accounting for approximately 63% of total first-quarter software sales. In this category, ActiveDisclosure, our new cloud-based solution purpose-built for SEC reporting, grew 29%.
ActiveDisclosure is an achievement that represents a significant step forward in SEC compliance. Not only have we reimagined the solution from the ground-up, we are making excellent progress in transitioning clients to the new platform. And partners are taking notice, too. Earlier this week, ActiveDisclosure achieved 'Built for NetSuite' status. The new SuiteApp, built using the Oracle NetSuite SuiteCloud Platform, helps organizations accelerate financial and regulatory reporting through the entire lifecycle of their financial journey – from private company to IPO and beyond. We are the only disclosure tool on their network.
Meanwhile, Venue, which experienced tremendous growth in 2021, grew sales by 12%, significantly outpacing the market trend of M&A, its primary use case. I am especially proud that Venue has been named “U.S.A. M&A Virtual Data Room of the Year” — for the sixth consecutive year — by Global M&A Network.
The upshot of these results is that we now expect to exceed our '44 in 24' goal of targeting 44% of our sales from software solutions by the year 2024. Further, we expect greater than 55% our total sales to be from software solutions by 2026.
None of this would be possible without DFIN’s employees around the world who have the vision to understand what our clients need and the expertise to deliver it.
