Cognyte Software Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
September 10, 2024

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Cognite Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session.

Operator

Instructions will be given at that time. Please note that today's conference may be recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker host, Dean Ridlawn, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. I'm Dean Ridlawn, Cognite's Head of Investor Relations. Thank you for joining us today. I'm here with Alad Shirom, Cognite's CEO and David Abadi, Cognite's CFO.

Speaker 1

Before getting started, I would like to mention that accompanying our call today is a presentation. If you'd like to view these slides in real time during the call, please visit the Investors section of our website atcognite.com. Click on Upcoming Events, then the webcast link for today's conference call. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that certain matters discussed on this call may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other provisions of the federal securities laws. These forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance.

Speaker 1

Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these forward looking statements. The forward looking statements are made as of the date of this call and except as required by law, Cognite assumes no obligation to update or revise them. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of how these and other risks and uncertainties could cause Cognite's actual results to differ materially from those indicated in these forward looking statements, please see our annual report on Form 20 F for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2024 and other filings we make with the SEC. The financial measures discussed today include non GAAP measures.

Speaker 1

We believe investors focus on non GAAP financial measures in comparing results between periods and among our peer companies that publish similar non GAAP measures. Please see today's presentation slides, our earnings release and the Investors section of our website at cognac.com for a reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures to GAAP measures. Non GAAP financial information should not be considered in isolation from, as a substitute for, or superior to GAAP financial information, but is included because management believes it provides meaningful information about the financial performance of our business and is useful to investors for informational and comparative purposes. The non GAAP financial measures that the company uses have limitations and may differ from those used by other companies. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Allat.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dean. Welcome everyone to our Q2 conference call. This was another strong quarter for Cognite. We're delivering on our business plan, executing the whole strategy and generating improved profitability as we leverage our financial model. We delivered another quarter of double digit revenue growth with gross margin and adjusted EBITDA expanding more rapidly than revenue.

Speaker 2

This year to date performance, solid visibility and healthy demand have given us the confidence to increase our full year outlook. During Q2, we delivered revenue of $84,000,000 up approximately 10% year over year. Non GAAP gross profit increased 13% year over year, growing faster than revenue, consistent with our focus on margin expansion. We also generated $8,000,000 of positive adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, more than 3 times the amount that we generated in Q2 last year, and we remain focused on delivering sustainable and profitable growth. A central component of our growth strategy is to deepen and broaden our engagement with existing customers by expanding the use of our solutions and introducing them to additional offerings.

Speaker 2

Our continued success in this area underscores the significant value we deliver and the strength of our customer relationships. In Q2, we secured 3 substantial follow on orders, each valued at over $10,000,000 These orders came from 2 national security agencies and a law enforcement agency. Each of these customers has realized significant value for our solutions over the years. We believe our solutions have proven to be indispensable, providing our customers the quality, reliability and power needed to tackle evolving challenges effectively. In North America, we continue to make progress.

Speaker 2

During the first half of the fiscal year, we won deals with 8 new customers. In each case, the customers replaced an incumbent with a Cognite solution. Many of these new customers were referred to us by existing customers who have experienced the high value and superiority of our technology firsthand. We are encouraged by the progress we are making. I want to shed some light on the evolving world of threats and the intelligence imperative our customers face.

Speaker 2

The investigation challenges faced by law enforcement and security agencies are becoming increasingly complex over time across various activities such as organized crime, counterterrorism, drug smuggling, human trafficking, financial crimes and illegal immigration. The growing challenges stem from the fact that bad actors are continually evolving, adopting more sophisticated tactics and exploiting the latest technologies to conceal their activities. They leverage encrypted communications, dark web networks and anonymous payment methods to evade detection, while increasingly using AI machine learning to mimic legitimate behavior and obscure their operations. This concept adoption makes it significantly harder for security agencies to track their activities, uncover networks and stop illegal operations before they take place. To empower our customers to stay ahead of these constantly evolving threats, we deliver cutting edge innovation powered by AI and advanced analytics.

Speaker 2

Our technology equips agencies to detect patterns, relationships and hidden insights that would otherwise be impossible to uncover. By partnering with and learning from hundreds of agencies worldwide, we continuously incorporate advanced intelligence methodologies, ensuring our broad base of customers has the best tools to remain many steps ahead of bad actors. In an effort to give you a clear understanding of how our solutions are deployed and the impact they deliver, I would like to focus this quarter in human trafficking, which remains a critical challenge for law enforcement agencies globally. We can only imagine the immense suffering of the victims of human trafficking, making it imperative to identify and resolve these cases as quickly as possible. This illegal activity is highly sophisticated and organized with criminal networks operating across international borders using complex financial transactions and communicating in multiple languages.

Speaker 2

These groups also leverage the latest communication technologies to conceal their identities and evade detection. One of the key challenges law enforcement faces in tackling human trafficking is extracting actionable insights from the vast amount of digital and traditional data sources fast. By deploying the Cognite platform, law enforcement agencies can uncover digital traces, reveal hidden identities, track financial transactions and assess intents and risks. Proactive measures driven by decision intelligence not only enable faster resolution, but also help prevent future crimes. Another highlight of this quarter relates to our cyber threat solution, Luminar.

Speaker 2

Recently, Cognite was recognized for Luminar AI Insights, one of our AI driven threat intelligence solutions, in an August 2024 Gartner report, The Future of Cyber Threat Intelligence Research. In this report, Gartner assesses trends impacting the threat intelligence domain, predicting that Gen AI based capabilities will become key as this technology will support faster mean time to respond by more quickly providing indicators about threats and the surrounding context. As generative AI technologies advanced in V shaped cybersecurity, Cognite has integrated these technologies into our Luminar solution and continues to develop even more advanced capabilities, making Luminar one of the only solutions with this cutting edge offering. In summary, we are making a meaningful difference for our customers, empowering them to address significant growing and evolving threats. Our mission to make the world a safer place drives everything we do.

Speaker 2

Our cutting edge solutions accelerate investigations, enable faster decision making and help mitigate a wide range of threats. We are continuing to grow by introducing new advanced capabilities, deepening the relationships with existing customers as well as expanding our reach with new ones. These accomplishments are strengthening our ability to deliver sustained profitable growth. With a strong first half of fiscal twenty twenty five and solid visibility into our revenue for the upcoming quarters, we are once again raising our full year outlook. We are now expecting revenue to be approximately $347,000,000 plus or minus 2%, representing about 11% year over year growth at the midpoint.

Speaker 2

Given the leverage in our financial model, we increased our adjusted EBITDA guidance and we now expect it to be about $25,000,000 at the midpoint of the revenue range, almost 3 times what we generated in fiscal 2024. Now let me turn the call over to David to provide more details about our Q2 results and updated fiscal 2025 outlook. David?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Elad, and hello, everyone. We continue to deliver strong results that reflect our solid execution and the leverage we have in our financial model. Q2 revenue was $84,400,000 an increase of approximately 10% year over year. The majority of the revenue growth was driven by an increase in software revenue. Recurring revenue is strong.

Speaker 3

We continue to grow our recurring revenue and in Q2 we generated $46,600,000 of recurring revenue. We were able to drive gross profit growth faster than revenue. Non GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 71.3%. Our non GAAP gross profit for the quarter was $60,200,000 an increase of $6,900,000 or 12.9 percent year over year growth. The margin expansion demonstrate the leverage we have built into our business model.

Speaker 3

This is largely driven by higher software revenue and the improved cost structure of our professional services organization. Our strong gross margin reflects the value our customer recognized in our innovative technology and our competitive differentiation. Non GAAP operating income and adjusted EBITDA grew meaningfully faster than revenue, reflecting the strength of our financial model. We ended Q2 with non GAAP operating income of $4,400,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $8,300,000 resulting in positive non GAAP EPS of $0.05 Looking at our H1 results, our revenue was $167,100,000 and grew by 11% year over year, and our non GAAP gross profit grew significantly faster by 15% year over year. The leverage we have in our model help us generate meaningful improvement in profitability year over year.

Speaker 3

Our H1 non GAAP operating income was $6,300,000 versus an operating loss of $6,500,000 during the first half of last fiscal year and our H1 adjusted EBITDA was $13,300,000 versus about breakeven in H1 of the previous year. Our balance sheet is strong. Our short and long term contract liabilities also known as deferred revenue are strong and were $111,400,000 at the end of Q2. Contract liabilities balances are impacted by multiple factors: renewal timing of support and subscription contracts advanced payments revenue recognition timing including contracts recognized under percentage of completion methodology. As a result, contract liabilities balances may fluctuate between quarters.

Speaker 3

Our cash position is strong with almost $100,000,000 of cash, up over $16,000,000 from year end and no debt. The increase in our cash balance was primarily due to cash flow from operations we generated during the first half of the year. Over the past few quarters, we have shared new KPIs to help show how our business is progressing. One more new KPI we are now sharing is quarterly billings. Q2 billings was $77,800,000 representing 11% year over year growth.

Speaker 3

Billing is defined as revenue plus the change in contract liabilities, contract assets and unbilled balances. Let me share with you how we performed against each of our other major KPIs. RPO or remaining performance obligations represents contracted revenue that is expected to be recognized as revenue in future periods. As a reminder, a few factors primarily impact RPO in a given period: sales cycle, deployment cycle, length of contracts, renewal timing and seasonality. Total RPO was $567,700,000 at the end of Q2.

Speaker 3

Short term RPO at the end of Q2 increased to $320,600,000 providing solid visibility into revenue over the next 12 months. We believe this level of RPO are healthy and support our growth. To improve visibility, we are providing additional disclosure and we break down our RPO balances between deferred revenue and backlog. Our total RPO of $567,700,000 is a sum of deferred revenue of $111,400,000 and backlog of $456,300,000 Turning to revenue. Q2 revenue grew by 9.6% year over year and was $84,400,000 Our software revenue was $72,300,000 an increase of $5,600,000 Recurring revenue is strong.

Speaker 3

We continue to grow our recurring revenue and in Q2 we generated $46,600,000 or 55 percent of total revenue. Recurring revenue is a contributor visibility and long term growth and represent mainly support contract revenue and some subscription offerings. The vast majority of our Q2 revenue was from repeat business similar to previous periods. This is a testament to the significant value our customer generate from our solution and the high confidence level in us for helping them succeed in the critical missions. Non GAAP gross margin continued to improve and in Q2 was 71.3 percent, an increase of 209 basis points year over year.

Speaker 3

Our gross profit continued to grow meaningfully faster than revenue. In Q2, non GAAP gross profit was up 12.9% year over year. The combination of revenue growth, better margins and effective cost structure drove significantly improved profitability. During Q2, we delivered $8,300,000 of adjusted EBITDA and non GAAP operating income of $4,400,000 Q2 was another quarter in which we demonstrated the leverage we have in our model and our financial strength. We've been focused on executing our goal to improve our financials and continue to drive margin expansion.

Speaker 3

Turning to guidance. Given Q2 market conditions, our momentum and visibility, we are sharing an increased outlook for the year. For fiscal 2025, we now expect full year revenue to be approximately $347,000,000 plus or minus 2%. This outlook represents approximately 11% year over year growth at the midpoint of the revenue range. We believe that our strong short term RPO of $320,600,000 and the demand environment support this outlook.

Speaker 3

We also believe that the seasonality of our revenue will be similar to historical patterns. We expect Q2 revenue to be slightly above the Q2 levels and ending the year with a strong Q4.

Speaker 2

Because of the leverage

Speaker 3

we have in our model, we now expect adjusted EBITDA to be about $25,000,000 at the midpoint of the revenue range compared to $9,000,000 last year. As a result of our increased outlook, we now expect annual non GAAP EPS loss to come in at $0.03 at the midpoint of the revenue range. We continue to expect to generate about $37,000,000 of cash from operations for this year. To summarize, we have started the year with a strong H1 and we have been executing consistently well and producing strong results. We continue to add capabilities and increase the value our advanced solutions deliver to new and existing customers by leveraging the latest technologies, including AI.

Speaker 3

We increased our revenue and profitability outlook for the current year and expect fiscal 2025 to be a year of continued both significant profitability improvement and strong cash flow from operations. We believe we are well positioned for sustainable growth and have leverage in our model so we can generate additional improvement in profitability in future years. With that, I would like to end the call over to the operator to open the line for questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank Our first question comes from Mike Scikos with Needham. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions here. Just wanted to cycle back to the revenue composition when we're looking at it today. I saw the software and software service declined 5% sequentially, which I think was the first time that we've seen this revenue stream decrease since 3Q of fiscal 2023. So just trying to get a sense of the software and software service revenue to understand what caused that decline or was that in line with how you guys had

Speaker 2

expected? Yes. Hi, Mike. So the vast majority of our offering is offered in perpetual license. As you remember, we do offer certain elements for portfolio in a subscription model.

Speaker 2

And the recurring revenue this quarter grew sequentially and year over year. In Q2, the recurring revenue came at $46,600,000 versus $41,200,000 in Q2 last year, representing about 40% increase and related to incremental subscription revenue. So if you look at it, the overall software revenue increased over year by 5 $500,000 So actually, it's a conversion of perpetual license to some offerings that is subscription.

Speaker 4

Got it. Got it. And if I think about the guidance that we have here for the rest of the year now, can you help us better think through, I guess, the split you're expecting between software and software service versus the professional services? Just again, because that professional services was so strong in this past quarter.

Speaker 3

Yes, Mike. It's David. So in general, our guidance baked on it the subscription revenue that we're seeing that is growing. You could see the trend that on overall recurring revenue that is growing and it's becoming more than 55% of the total revenue, which is good. It gives us visibility and you could see that between the growth in the recurring revenue, the portion of the subscription is higher.

Speaker 3

Now if you will think about governmental agencies, the purchasing behavior is remained the same. Their preference is to steal and buy in our domain on CapEx model, which mean in other words perpetual. We do encourage them the customer to do this transition and we are very pleased that we were able to do it this year. But from a forecast perspective, our 11% is taking consideration everything. And we believe that in the long term, there will be more impact related to subscription.

Speaker 4

Got it. Thank you very much. I'll leave it there and turn it over to my colleagues.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Dane for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Michelle, and thank you everyone for joining us on today's call. Allat, David and I will be traveling to Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis in early October to meet with investors and hope to see some of you then. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to me should you have any questions and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter.

Operator

Thank you for your participation. This does conclude the program and you may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.

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Earnings Conference Call
Cognyte Software Q2 2025
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