Upland Software Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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August 1, 2024

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Upland Software Second Quarter 20 24 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions for that will be given at that time. The conference call will be recorded and simultaneously webcast at investor. Uplandsoftware.com, and a replay will be available there for 12 months.

Operator

By now, everyone should have access to the Q2 2024 earnings release, which was distributed today at 4 pm Eastern Time. If you have not received the release, it's available on Upland's website. I'd now like to turn the call over to Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO of Upland Software. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you, and welcome to our Q2 2024 earnings call. I'm joined today by Mike Hill, our CFO. I'm going to start with a Q2 review and following that, Mike will provide some detail on the numbers and our guidance. After that, we'll open the call up for Q and A.

Speaker 1

But before we get started, Mike will read the Safe Harbor statement.

Speaker 2

All right. Thank you, Jack. During today's call, we will include statements that are considered forward looking within the meanings of the securities laws. A detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties associated with such statements is contained in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. The forward looking statements made today are based on views and assumptions and on information currently available to Upland Management as of today.

Speaker 2

We do not intend or undertake any duty to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward looking statements. On this call, Upland will refer to non GAAP financial measures that when used in combination with GAAP results provide Upland Management with additional analytical tools to understand its operations. Upland has provided reconciliations of non GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in our press release announcing our financial results, which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Please note that we're unable to reconcile any forward looking non GAAP financial measures to their directly comparable GAAP financial measures because the information which is needed to complete a reconciliation is unavailable at this time without unreasonable effort. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Jack.

Speaker 1

All right. Thanks, Mike. Here are the headlines on the quarter. We beat our Q2 revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance midpoint, so beat those midpoints. We posted core bookings in excess of core churn, just like we did in Q1.

Speaker 1

So that's 2 quarters in a row and that's the key point for this year, posting quarter after quarter of core bookings in excess of core churn. That's what's going to set us up for our target 3% core organic growth rate in 2025. I'd note that in this year, the core organic growth rate will bounce around a bit based on year over year compares. It's positive this quarter. But again, the meaningful part of this is putting up core bookings in excess of core churn quarter by quarter.

Speaker 1

Good news also on the adjusted EBITDA front. Q2 adjusted EBITDA, dollars 13,600,000 in the second quarter. That is up sequentially from $13,100,000 in the first quarter. And as you can see by the midpoints of our guidance, we expect adjusted EBITDA to continue to grow each quarter this year. So again, $13,100,000 in Q1, dollars 13,600,000 in Q2, dollars 14,000,000 in Q3, $14,900,000 in Q4.

Speaker 1

So the plan is to exit the year at nearly a $60,000,000 adjusted EBITDA run rate. So we're setting up for 2025 with positive core organic growth. We're going to be targeting that 3% number core organic growth next year and continued expansion of adjusted EBITDA to the mid-sixty million next year. So we have we believe made the turn both in terms of starting to show steps towards positive core organic growth and getting past the low point on EBITDA and now with this quarter and the quarters going forward, bringing EBITDA up each quarter. So again, still in the early stages, but we are starting to see the ship turn here.

Speaker 1

So we welcomed 155 new customers to Upland in Q2 and that includes 17 new major customers. We also expanded relationships with 275 existing customers including 41 major expansions. And I will say based on the growth investment that we've made in pipeline generation, SDR capacity, sales capacity. We are starting to see chunkier deals, larger ARR deals for our lead products. And that's a critical kind of green shoot.

Speaker 1

And so good news that we are starting to see those larger deals where and it's their marketing sourced pipeline, right? So the work that we've done on organic search, the work that we've done in terms of accessing intent data, having an SDR capacity to qualify these leads, the product marketing work that we've done, the investment in the sales team that we've done, it's starting to bear some fruit here. Again, I'll caution that it's early, but we're seeing those green shoots including chunkier deals. A few other points. We earned 56 badges in G2's summer 2024 market reports.

Speaker 1

That was across our portfolio of products that's up from 44 badges in the spring 2024 reports. Our AI knowledge management solutions, Upland RightAnswers and Upland Panviva continued to garner numerous badges, while Upland Cubitian, our AI powered proposal management and response software increased earned recognitions another quarter in a row. Additional products to receive badges included UplandGenius, which is a computer telephony integration solution, which powers personalized customer service with AI, and Upland Interfax, which is a secure cloud based fax service, and of course other products also on the badge list. And again, beginning to see more reviews and more engagement with G2 as a platform and we expect more goodness to come from there. I would note Upland Cubitian continues to enhance the response and sales proposal process with new its new generative AI model called Cubitian AI Assist.

Speaker 1

Qvidian is a leader in the RFP and proposal automation industry. It's dedicated to helping teams easily uncover the right processes and quickly for RFP response generation and quickly create standout proposals and RFP responses. And this beta release of, Qubidian AI Assist, it adds these powerful new AI features. And of course, we've also got the partnership with IDM that we've talked about before integrating Watson X AI capabilities into Qvidian. So these are both examples, when you look at RightAnswers and Panviva, you look at Qvidian of where we are doing deep work to integrate AI capabilities into our products.

Speaker 1

And of course, these were product initiatives that began well over a year ago that are now beginning to come to market, in some cases in beta, in some cases generally available. I'd also note a partner announcement, Upland and RamSoft. RamSoft is a global leader in cloud based RIS, PACS radiology solutions for imaging centers and teleradiology providers announced the milestone transmission of the 40,000,000 fax through the integration of RamSoft PowerServer and Upland Interfax. So it's Interfax's robust security features, including HIPAA compliance and PHIPA compliance complement power service secure HIPAA compliant architecture. And so we're seeing with our secure file transfer solutions some great growth characteristics.

Speaker 1

These are also high margin products and really seeing some success there as we have for some time in healthcare and financial services, but seeing an acceleration of that, which is great to see. Also a note on Upland Altify, during the quarter, we announced the release 9.12 release, which contained major enhancements to transform the customer experience with Altify's Salesforce native products. And of course, Altify is a product that really enables B2B enterprise sales forces to coordinate activities, deploy methodology in a super efficient way and do the kind of account planning and white space analysis that can really move the needle in terms of sales generation and of course adding now AI capabilities to that platform. And Altify is Salesforce native, so the Salesforce partnership has been great for us. And at 9.12, again, just the next step in Ultifi's evolution.

Speaker 1

So a great quarter, another step along the way towards driving growth and driving margin expansion. And with that, I'm going to turn the call over to Mike to review the numbers and guidance. Mike?

Speaker 2

All right. Thank you, Jack. I'll cover the financial results for the Q2 of 2024 and our outlook for the Q3 and full year 2024. These results and our outlook for 2024 reflect our continued incremental sales, marketing and product investments pursuant to our growth plan as well as the previously announced runoff of the Sunset assets. So on the income statement, total revenue for the Q2 was $69,300,000 representing a decrease of 7% year over year.

Speaker 2

Recurring revenue from subscription and support declined 7% year over year to $65,500,000 Provencial license revenue increased to $1,700,000 for the 2nd quarter, up from $1,300,000 in the Q2 of 2023. Professional services revenue was $2,100,000 for the quarter, a 23% year over year decline. These revenue declines are consistent with the planned runoff of our Sunset assets. Overall gross margin was 70% during the 2nd quarter and our product gross margin was 71% and that's 75% when adding back depreciation and amortization, which we refer to as cash gross margin. Operating expenses for the Q2 of 2024 excluding depreciation, amortization and stock based compensation were $37,900,000 for the quarter, a 55 percent of total revenue.

Speaker 2

This is in line with our expectations and reflects the sales, marketing and product investments we have been making as part of our growth plan. Our Q2 2024 adjusted EBITDA was 13 point $6,000,000 or 20 percent of total revenue, down from $16,600,000 or 22% of total revenue for the Q2 of 2023. This adjusted EBITDA year over year decline is generally as expected considering our growth investments and our decision regarding the Sunset assets. However, and as Jack said, you can see our adjusted EBITDA growing sequentially each quarter this year from $13,100,000 in Q1 to $13,600,000 this quarter in Q2 to $14,000,000 in Q3 $14,900,000 in Q4 based on the midpoints of our guidance. So this has us, as Jack said, exiting 2024 almost $60,000,000 of annual run rate adjusted EBITDA setting us up for the mid $60,000,000 next year.

Speaker 2

For cash flow, for the Q2 of 2024, GAAP operating cash flow was $5,500,000 and free cash flow was $5,200,000 which is in line with our expectations. Our ongoing free cash flow generation is in addition to our approximately $232,000,000 of cash on our balance sheet as of June 30, 24. At the end of June, we had outstanding net debt of approximately $247,000,000 after factoring in the cash on our balance sheet. At the end of Q2, our gross debt was approximately $479,000,000 of which $257,000,000 is still fully hedged, effectively locking our interest rate at 5.4 percent on that portion of our debt through the full maturity of our term debt, which is in August of 2026. The remaining approximately $222,000,000 of term debt now floats at an interest rate of SOFR plus 385 basis points, which was 9.2% at June 30, 2024.

Speaker 2

I will also note that we used $3,000,000 of cash to buy back approximately 1,000,000 shares of common stock during the Q2 under our limited stock repurchase program that began in early September of 2023. This concluded our $25,000,000 stock buyback plan with a cumulative total of approximately 6,500,000 shares repurchased. Now on to guidance. As described on past calls, the following guidance continues to reflect the significant incremental sales, marketing and product investments that we are making as part of our comprehensive growth plan, as well as the effects of decreasing revenue and expenses related to those Sunset assets. Also, I will note that we have raised our full year 2024 guidance midpoints for total revenue and adjusted EBITDA by the amounts of the Q2 guidance midpoint beats.

Speaker 2

So for the quarter ending September 30, 2024, we expect reported total revenue to be between $63,200,000 $69,200,000 including subscription and support revenue between $60,100,000 $65,100,000 for a decline in total revenue of 11% at the midpoint from the quarter ended September 30, 2023. 3rd quarter 2024 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $12,500,000 $15,500,000 for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21% at the midpoint. This adjusted EBITDA guidance at the midpoint is a decrease of 13% from the quarter ended September 30, 2023. For the full year ending December 31, 2024, we expect reported total revenue to be between $269,600,000 $281,600,000 including subscription and support revenue between $254,100,000 264,100,000 for a decline in total for a decline in total revenue of 7% at the midpoint from the year ended December 31, 2023. Full year 2024 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $52,600,000 $58,600,000 for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20% at the midpoint.

Speaker 2

This adjusted EBITDA guide at the midpoint is a decrease of 14% from the year ended December 31, 2023. And again, I'll point out, as both Jack and I have mentioned, that these guide midpoints represent sequentially growing quarterly adjusted EBITDA for every quarter this year, exiting the year in Q4 at $14,900,000 at the implied guidance midpoint, which is almost $60,000,000 of annualized run rate. So with that, I'll pass the call back to Jack.

Speaker 1

All right. Thanks, Mike. Let's open the call up and take any questions there might be.

Operator

Our first question comes from the line of Ian Black from Needham. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Hi, this is Ian Black on for Scott Berg. Core bookings have exceeded core churn again as you note, but how far through the go to market changes is the company now? I would say that we have we're about halfway through that process in the sense that we've put in place the lead generation and lead qualification. We've put in place the demand gen teams. We put in place the inside sellers.

Speaker 1

We have upgraded our field sales force. We have brought in place put in place new sales leadership. And we are seeing the results of that in terms of significant increases in pipeline generation and now beginning to see

Operator

some chunkier

Speaker 1

sales hitting, which is great to see across a few of the products. And so the work has been done and now we're starting to see the fruits of those labors begin to ripen here. So we feel good about where we are and it's execution now quarter by quarter. At the same time, part of that growth investment was on product and cloud ops, and we're seeing the benefits of that as well in our renewals numbers. And you put those 2 together and we're seeing again 2 quarters in a row of positive core net ARR.

Speaker 1

Now I realize that's only the beginning, but it's we're feeling good about Q3 in the second half of the year. And that should set us up to attack our 3% core organic growth target next year. And again, exiting the year at $60,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA run rate with a goal to get to the mid $60,000,000 next year. So if this business troughed at sort of a core organic growth rate of negative 1 or negative 2, 55,000,000 dollars of EBITDA, we see now we've made that turn and we're going to get this thing back to at least low single digits next year with mid-sixty million having made the turn. And then, of course, we want to take it higher from there.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Van Rhee from Craig Hallum. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, good evening guys. Thanks for taking my questions. This is Daniel on for Jeff. Just starting off just on the Sunset asset you guys do a great job of getting the 10 Q out promptly. It looks like there's about $8,500,000 still of Sunset assets.

Speaker 4

Just thoughts on the pace of roll off of that and how we should expect that to unfold? It looks like year over year that's down maybe about $5,000,000 Should we expect sort of on absolute value basis roughly a similar pace of roll off? Or just how should we be modeling that?

Speaker 2

Yes, Daniel, this is Mike. So just from a modeling standpoint, I think this is going to be very consistent with what we've said in the past. We've got about $30,000,000 of Sunset asset revenue here in calendar 2024. Next year 2025, that's going to decline to about half, call it, dollars 17,000,000 or so next year. And then in 2026, it'll half again down to somewhere around $8,000,000 $8,000,000 $9,000,000 So that's sort of the pace of the runoff.

Speaker 4

Thanks. And then any thoughts on especially as at points of being considering M and A, just what the strategy is for tackling the debt balance? And as we get incrementally closer to 26, just how you envision the path toward refinancing?

Speaker 1

Yes. This is Jack. So, we anticipate doing a refinancing in the first half of twenty twenty five. So that's the plan and we'll execute against it then.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thanks for that. And then just last for me, just digging down sort of to the product level, as you look through the product portfolio, any particular product pockets to be calling out in terms of particular strength or weakness?

Speaker 1

Well, a number of products where we saw some highlights in Q2, one is Altify, which is the B2B sales enablement solution I mentioned earlier. Saw some good chunky deals there. BAI, which is our AI powered enterprise search solution, where we've got a growing partnership with Microsoft, where our connectors are used as a part of enterprise cognitive AI for Azure implementations. We're seeing some nice momentum there. We remain positive on our RightAnswers and Panviva knowledge solutions, which have application in contact centers and also web based self-service applications in both in a variety of industries, including a lot of highly regulated industries.

Speaker 1

So continuing to see positive results there. We're seeing a nice turnaround in mobile comments, which again still early, but that is our mobile text messaging solution. So when we look at our key growing products, The work that we've put in over the last year and a half in terms of a product investment, cloud investment, positioning these products appropriately, getting them into the stream of commerce by upgrading our organic search efforts. For a lot of these products, a year and a half ago, our search rankings were not first page. And now, we've got pretty much all first page rankings.

Speaker 1

We've got 18 number 1 rankings and double that top 5 rankings. So, and I mentioned where we are with G2, still a ton of work to be done, but those badges are a part of the recognition, also increasing the number of reviews out there. These are good products. We have not done a good enough job marketing and selling them. That's one of the reasons we brought in the HCGC investment a couple of years ago, focused the product portfolio and committed to this $20,000,000 $19,000,000 a year growth investment.

Speaker 1

So we've been hard at it and we're starting to see the results of it. Obviously, we're learning month by month, quarter by quarter, making tweaks. There are things we can be doing better. We're also seeing opportunities to toggle up investment in some areas, toggle down investment in others. But that's the basic take on the products where we're seeing success.

Speaker 1

And again, we feel good about where we're positioned, but we just need to execute quarter by quarter.

Speaker 4

Thanks for that, Jack. And then just one last for me for Mike. Just on gross margins, can you help us sort of cut through as the business is sort of transitioning out of the Sunset assets, hard to tell the trajectory on gross margins was, let's say, 72% Q4, 2023, up to 75%, down to 73%. Just hard to read the trajectory there. How should we what should we be modeling there?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think over time, Daniel, the margins will gradually improve a little bit as those sunset assets decline. Those are generally lower margin products, even gross margin. So, now I'm not talking about a lot, but sort of tens of basis points kind of improvement over time gradual.

Speaker 4

Okay, that's helpful. That's it for me. Thanks guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Sklar from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Hi, thanks for taking the question. This is John on for Alex. Jack, I'm curious maybe if you could comment on sales cycles you're seeing in the market. Some companies lately have been calling out elongated sales cycles. Just curious if you could speak to what you're seeing and maybe how that's trended over the last 90 days?

Speaker 1

And I have a few follow ups. We have not seen a lengthening of sales cycles. Now maybe we're idiosyncratic in that regard because we've really started ramping up our marketing efforts over the last 18 months. But gosh, if anything, we saw a couple of $250,000 ARR deals marketing source that were sourced and closed in quarter. So for the right AI powered solutions in the marketplace, we're seeing demand, not seeing a lengthening now.

Speaker 1

You ask me next quarter, maybe we'll have a different result, but we didn't see that in Q2. That's helpful there. And that leads into my next question on the major account expansions, which were up nicely sequentially and year over year. I know you mentioned some during the prepared remarks, but just any commentary on what's driving the success there, commonality maybe geographically and how we should think about the trajectory of that metric? Do you expect to kind of hit a near term trough here?

Speaker 1

You're talking about in I just want to make sure I understand the question. You're talking about the I

Speaker 3

mean, I was specifically

Speaker 1

talking about major yes, the major account expansion that you guys called out there. Yes. Part of this effort, our growth effort was bringing in new CS leadership. So, we brought in a team from In for, our Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Sales Officer and Chief Customer Success Officer. We've deployed a new tech stack in CS.

Speaker 1

We've been investing in enablement of our customer success teams and really moving from being reactive to being proactive partners with our customers driving value. Again, we are early in that process, but the level of rigor and discipline in that function is a step change up from where it was a year ago. And so I'm optimistic that we're going to see both improved GDRR as well as improved NDRR. NDRR over the last year is up. Mike, keep me in check here.

Speaker 1

I think about 100 basis points. Yes. Right. And so I think we're running now at 96%, or at least that was the tick mark that was disclosed year end 'twenty three. So the goal is to improve that another couple of 300 basis points over the next couple of 3 years, and I think we're on our way to doing that.

Speaker 1

Again, we are early in that process, a lot of work yet to be done. Expansions have been a disproportionate share of bookings for us over the past couple of years. I expect the share of bookings comprised by expansions to decline as new logo activity increases, right, because all of this investment that we've been making in pipeline generation has been new logo opportunities. And there's also work we're doing around customer marketing and frankly, directing more of our sales capability at the existing customer base to supplement the efforts of our customer success teams and to drive larger expansion opportunities because there's value we can be bringing to our customer base I think we're leaving on the table today. So it's a core part of our growth plan.

Speaker 1

And thus far, the signs look good, but again, still lots of work to do.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And then

Speaker 1

just the last one for me. I realize there's moving pieces internally that you've been talking about here, but just any commentary you can share on the acquisition pipeline going forward? I think last quarter you mentioned you're always looking. Just curious what you're seeing from private multiples and how we should think about M and A as we move forward in the model? Private multiples remain high.

Speaker 1

I see our focus and we will stay in the market and continue to monitor opportunities and to be opportunistic. But we are focused on driving organic growth. That's how we're going to create value over the next couple of years here. We're also focused on margin expansion. And then, of course, generating cash flow and continuing to pay down debt.

Speaker 1

So that's as we look out over the next 12 months, that's really the core 12 to 24 months, that's really the core focus. But of course, we always keep our eyes open. And I have not I just have not seen any kind of screaming opportunities out there. I just think those private market multiples have been have remained too high, at least for us based on where our stock is trading today. Just hard to make a case for it.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of David Hynes from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, guys. This is Dan Regan on for DJ. Maybe one for Jack to start. So you guys are seeing some nice returns from your sales and marketing investments across areas like search intent, SDR capacity. So clearly, you guys are positioned to have that nice EBITDA glide path from here.

Speaker 3

But I'm wondering how you're thinking about the pace of sales and marketing investments from here. And then also just productivity of these investments as they continue to

Speaker 1

ramp? So I think we are fully invested in terms of execution of the plan we originally laid out. So you'll recall it was a $19,000,000 annual investment, $5,000,000 of that was on the product side and a lot of that had to do with a chunk of that had to do with standing up our Indian center of excellence, where we've gone from 0 to 150 developers and opportunity to grow that further, super efficient development pause that we're able to put in place there. Then you had a $14,000,000 spend on sales and marketing and that has been fully deployed. As we move forward there, we don't see a need to increase that investment.

Speaker 1

In fact, we are seeing opportunities to better target the money we're spending. We've got all the systems in place. We've got the processes in place. Now it's about tuning it. Many of these motions, you think about organic search, for example, it costs more to get those rankings in place than it does to maintain them.

Speaker 1

So, the intent data that we are accessing now, the forward roll you start to get on positive reviews, getting your content out in the market. So a lot of those things have been done. And I think those motions, frankly, will get more efficient through time. And that's one of the reasons why we're starting already to see some margin enhancement. And I think you'll continue to see that in the next year again where we're targeting mid-60s.

Speaker 1

And then we'll be targeting something with a 7 handle on it for 2026,

Speaker 3

again, all organic. Got you. Awesome. And then you highlighted chunkier deals and larger ARR lands for core products. Can you talk a little bit about what the average deal size increase is looking like and where you're seeing the most traction?

Speaker 1

Yes. So, if you look at our business, 1800 enterprise customers drive more than 90% of our revenue and the average ARR across those customers is 150,000. Now, sometimes you go right in with a chunky opportunity that's in that size range or bigger. Sometimes you're starting with $25,000 or $50,000 kind of land and expand opportunity. Over the last couple of years, not to put too fine a point on it, but we're just seeing more of the small stuff.

Speaker 1

And what we're seeing now, and again, I want to emphasize it's early, but the investment in product marketing, the investment in demand gen, the new sales leadership that we've got, getting tools in the hands of some of the great sales people we've always had on board and then adding new sales talent, kind of getting our mojo back a little bit on going after bigger opportunities. And the investment we've done on the product side, Dan Dohman's team has done a tremendous job over the past couple of 3 years getting us set up for this. So addressing any stability issues, addressing product feature issues, getting us to where we needed to be, seeing the opportunity around AI and starting these efforts well over a year ago so that for products like RightAnswers, we were able to really be the 1st contact center platform out there, one of the first to bring to market a chat GPT integration. So that's what we're starting to see some of those chunkier deals. And again, it's going to be quarter by quarter, but we're optimistic.

Speaker 3

Awesome. And then just as a final one, circling back to the customer expansion discussion and kind of building off of comments that you just made here. What does the current gross mix look like between expansion revenue and net new revenue today? And then with the progress that you're making, with all of those sales and marketing investments, where do you expect that this mix will go over the next few years?

Speaker 1

Yes. I would say at the trough for us a couple of years ago, you were looking at 70% expansion, 30% new. The kind of more historical average for this business has been fifty-fifty, which is where it should be running and where it's sort of getting back to now. But with the investment we're making, I would see it go into more sixtyforty 60 new, 40 expansion. And that will I don't know that that will be a this year statement.

Speaker 1

It's probably more of a next year statement. But that's roughly where I see it.

Speaker 3

Awesome. All right. Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator

At this time, there are no more questions in the queue. So I'll turn it back over to Jack McDonald for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Okay. Just want to thank everyone for their time today, and we will see you on our next quarterly earnings call. Thank you so much.

Operator

And that does conclude today's presentation. Have a pleasant day.

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