Safello's revenue fell 33 percent to SEK 87.6 million in the second quarter. CEO Frank Schuil still argues the company holds all the trump cards after its Swedish competitors were denied MiCA licences.
The Swedish crypto broker released its second-quarter figures on Friday 7 August. Revenue fell by a third to SEK 87.6 million, and the loss more than tripled to SEK 7.3 million. Yet in the interim report, CEO Frank Schuil strikes a confident note: "Because all Swedish competitors were denied a MiCA licence, while Binance withdrew from Europe, Safello holds all the trump cards to win the market," writes Frank Schuil, founder and CEO of Safello, in the company's interim report.
Safello Group is listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market under the ticker SFL and runs a brokerage platform where private individuals and businesses buy and sell crypto assets in Swedish kronor and euros. MiCA is the EU/EEA regulatory framework for crypto assets, which requires a licence to offer such services.
The decline starts with the customers. Safello had roughly 13,000 active customers during the quarter, against 18,700 in the same period last year. New customer intake more than halved, to around 1,500 from 3,500. With fewer customers came fewer trades: the number of orders fell to 22,100 from 37,000.
That feeds straight through to the top line. Net revenue came in at SEK 87.6 million, down from SEK 130.8 million. The report attributes the decline primarily to lower order volumes.
Gross profit — what Safello keeps after paying for the crypto assets it resells — fell far more than revenue: 63 percent, to SEK 4.7 million from SEK 12.8 million. Measured against revenue, the margin was nearly halved, from 9.8 to 5.4 percent. The report links the margin decline to the lower order volumes.
With a thinner margin to cover costs, the operating result landed at minus SEK 7.3 million, against minus SEK 2.4 million the year before. Of that, SEK 2.5 million stems from the sale of the company's TAO holding, where a realised loss of SEK 4.6 million was partly offset by a reversal of SEK 2.1 million. Earnings per share came to minus SEK 0.36, against minus SEK 0.11.
Within the quarter, the trend ran the other way. Revenue was SEK 25.6 million in April, SEK 28.6 million in May and SEK 33.4 million in June.
Total operating costs fell to SEK 9.5 million from SEK 13.8 million. Personnel costs were cut by 42 percent to SEK 3.4 million, following a reduction in staff. At the end of the quarter the group had 19 people employed, against 32 at the same point last year.
Schuil writes that the cost savings the company began late in 2025 are already visible in the quarter's figures, and that further steps have been taken beyond what was planned. The full effect of the measures is expected from the third quarter onwards, according to the interim report.
Group equity stood at SEK 16.5 million at the end of June, against SEK 27.1 million at the start of the year. Cash rose during the quarter to SEK 12.7 million from SEK 11.4 million at the end of March, driven by SEK 6.9 million in cash flow from investing activities following the TAO sale.
On 4 June, Safello Group and its subsidiary Safello AB entered a strategic partnership agreement with Wictor Family Office and Wictor Holding covering crypto asset services. The agreement includes a planned mandate under which Safello AB will provide custody services to the family office, and gives Wictor Holding the right, on certain conditions, to subscribe for shares in Safello Group.
Schuil writes that the agreement puts the company on track towards a new institutional offering, that more partners are coming into the picture, and that more financial institutions have shown interest since the deal became known. The company continues to deliver its existing institutional product to Swedish authorities through the framework agreement with the police authority, extended on 27 May.
Safello is also live with its first paying customer on the Atoma service. According to Schuil, the pipeline holds further players, including a tier 1 bank, but sales cycles take time at this stage of commercialisation.
In the interim report, Schuil ties the outlook closely to MiCA. He describes Safello as the only MiCA-licensed crypto exchange in Sweden, and writes that the positive effects of the licence are beginning to take shape. Since the MiCA deadline passed, the company sees a general shift in sentiment among institutions when it comes to their willingness to work with it, according to Schuil.
Schuil describes the Swedish retail market as one the company intends to win back, and describes the effort to reverse the falling metrics as a complete rewrite of the codebase for the mobile and web apps, using an AI-first approach. He also notes that the acquisition channel bitcoin.se has lost ground in search rankings.
The quarter thus offers two pictures of the same company: one where revenue, orders and customer numbers all point downwards, and one where management believes the Swedish competitors are out of the game. The next checkpoint comes on 6 November, when Safello reports third-quarter figures — the first quarter in which the company itself expects the cost cuts to come through in full.
Sources: Safello
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