Jennifer Harris
Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open
Thanks, Matt. We are pleased to have delivered fourth quarter revenues that exceeded our guidance. I will briefly review our results for the fourth quarter before finishing with updated guidance for the first quarter and full year 2015. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $22.1 million, an increase of 41% year-over-year and up 6% from the previous quarter. Revenue for the full-year 2014 was $79.1 million, up 39% year-over-year. Our increased revenue in the fourth quarter was principally the result of strong growth in subscription revenue. Subscription revenue benefited from new customer go lives in the quarter as well organic user growth from existing customers. Transaction-based revenue increased in actual dollars, but continued to decline as a percentage of total revenue. Transaction revenue represented 22% of total revenue in the fourth quarter, down from 23% in the year ago period. We continue to see strong growth within our existing customer base as they expand their use of our platform. Organic user growth and cross sales of more products to our existing customers contributed to 122% revenue retention rate for the full-year 2014, down slightly from 128% in 2013. The lower revenue retention was not unexpected, and largely due to a single customer that was acquired by a larger financial institution in mid-2012 and migrate off of our platform in the first quarter of 2014, therefore negatively impacting revenue retention. As a reminder, this metric compares revenue of all customers at the end of the previous year, with the revenue from that same group of customers at the end of the current year. It therefore measures the growth of our business within customers existing at the end of the prior year net of attrition. We believe revenue retention speaks to the success of our customers and Q2's ability to grow revenue from our existing customers over time. We ended the year with 351 customers live on the Q2 platform, up from 334 customers at the end of 2013. Our revenue churn for the full year 2014 was 4.8%, up from 3.5% in 2013 and below our goal of 5%. The higher churn was primarily due to the customer I referenced earlier when discussing revenue retention. I would point out our controllable churn, which excludes the impact of mergers and acquisitions remained below 3.5%. As we turn to gross margin and operating expenses, please note that unless otherwise stated, all references to our expenses and operating results are on a non-GAAP basis. Gross margin was 42.8%, up from 31% in the fourth quarter of 2013 and essentially flat from 42.9% in the previous quarter. I would note that the fourth quarter 2013 gross margin was negatively impacted by a one-time charge related to phase [ph] out to a data center vendor regarding past use of intellectual property. Excluding this impact, gross margin would have been 37.8%. The year-over-year improvement was primarily attributable to growth in prescription revenue and increased productivity of headcount and data center investments made in 2013. For the full year 2014, gross margin was 42.6% compared to 38.6% for the full year 2013, excluding the one-time charge in Q4 that I discussed earlier. As I mentioned last quarter, our success and continued momentum within the Tier-1 space, including the two new Tier-1 deals signed in the fourth quarter will require continued investment in our implementation organization, which will keep gross margins relatively flat in the first quarter of 2015, but we remain on track and are committed to delivering annual improvements in gross margins. As a reminder, gross margins will vary from period-to-period, depending on factors specific to each period, such as the amount of implementation services required to deploy our products relative to total contract value, timing of new customer go live and the mix of internal and third-party product revenue. Turning to operating expenses, we continued to invest in our business and added headcount in focused areas, including our sales force, product development and implementation teams. Total operating expenses were $12.6 million, up 18% from a year ago and up slightly from the previous quarter. We ended the year with 501 employees compared to 425 at the end of 2013. Sales and marketing expenses were $5.7 million, up 17% year-over-year and up 4%, sequentially. Both, the year-over-year and sequential increase were primarily due to investments in headcount. Research and development spending was $3.2 million, up 21% year-over-year and up 7% from the previous quarter. The increased R&D spending year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter reflects increased headcount to support an expanded product roadmap for 2015. General and administrative expenses were $3.7 million, up 18% from a year ago, but 5% from the prior quarter. We added G&A headcount in 2013 in preparation for becoming a public company and will continue to invest as the business grows, but we expect the pace of growth to moderate. The sequential decline was driven by a slight decrease in employee and related benefit cost as well as lower spending on travel and professional services. I would point out that G&A spending was slightly less than 17% of revenue in the fourth quarter, down from 19% of revenue at the beginning of the year. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $2.2 million, an improvement from negative $2.3 million in the previous quarter. The improvement was driven primarily by the higher than anticipated revenue adjusted EBITDA for the year was negative $10.4 million, a 15% improvement from negative $12.3 million in 2013. We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and investments of $88.9 million. Cash flow from operations for the fourth quarter was negative $1 million. The company incurred net capital expenditures of $1.2 million during the quarter, which was largely offset by proceeds from employee stock option exercises. Our deferred revenue on December 31st was $36.7 million, essentially flat from the previous quarter. I would like to remind you that we bill our customers for their subscription fees on a monthly basis; therefore we do not believe it is meaningful to look at deferred revenue as an indicator of future revenue. Any increase in deferred revenue reflects customer deposits collected during the quarter, partially offset by revenue recognized during the quarter for services engagement. Let me wrap up by sharing our first quarter and full year 2015 guidance. We forecast first quarter revenue in the range of $23.2 million to $23.8 million and full year revenue in the range of $104 million to $106 million, representing 31% to 34% year-over-year growth. We forecast first quarter adjusted EBITDA of negative $3 million to negative $3.5 million and negative $9.5 million to negative $11 million for the full year 2015. We expect headcount additions across the organization as we continue to grow sales and investment in implementation capacity and an expanded product roadmap. This will moderate the pace of adjusted EBITDA improvement in early 2015. However, revenue growth and improved margins will combine to deliver meaningful improvement in the back half of the year. In summary, 2014 was a strong year of continued execution. As we enter 2015, we are excited about the large market opportunity ahead of us. Q2 it well positioned to deliver strong top-line growth and annual improvements in margins as we march towards our long-term target. With that, let me turn it back over to Matt for his closing remarks.