Jennifer Harris
Analyst · Joe Vruwink from Baird. Your line is open
Thanks, Matt. I will begin by reiterating some of the points Matt alluded to on the durability of our financial model, then I'll review our results for the first quarter of 2020 and conclude with updated guidance for the second quarter and full-year 2020. We while COVID-19 has caused some disruption to sales processes and implementation projects. The impact to revenue in 2020 will be different across our lines of business, with Cloud Lending and PrecisionLender being impacted to a larger degree due to their international operations where COVID-19 hit first.Additionally, our cloud-based lending solutions typically convert to revenue quicker than bookings of our digital banking solutions. So the financial impact of a booking slowdown in this space will be more immediate. This is especially true for PrecisionLender, which is heavily focused on large enterprise deals and has a robust pipeline in Europe. In this region, we have observed the distracted buying environment and delayed implementations as these large enterprise customers focus existing resources on adapting to the new macro environment.We were in active contract negotiations with several enterprise customers, and these conversations were suspended given the widespread uncertainty and distraction of COVID-19. We believe these deals are not lost, but rather just delayed until these enterprises begin to regain some certainty as to the outcome of this pandemic and begin to refocus their internal business resources on new project implementations. In March, we also began to see a slowdown in decision-making by certain prospects related to net new digital banking deals, and we expect this slowdown to continue until they have adjusted to the current environment. However, given the extended time to revenue for our net new digital banking customers, the impact of this slowdown will materialize more slowly.We also don't know the extent to which any slowdown will be mitigated by increased demand as markets reopen. As Matt mentioned, digital banking bookings for Q1 were largely in line with our plan. Given the dependency of digital banking revenue on implementation timing, any delay in net new bookings during the second quarter would likely affect the cadence of our 2021 revenue, but only have a small impact on late 2020 revenue. The 2020 impact to the digital banking portion of our business will be largely dependent on the ability of our financial institutions to continue moving implementation projects forward for the remainder of the year and our ability to successfully continue to cross-sell new features and functionality into our existing customer base.As Matt mentioned, while it is not uncommon for our staff to deliver projects remotely, we are finding that some FIs may have difficulty remotely executing on projects such as new implementations, and others have delayed projects as a result of their prioritization of urgent initiatives in response to COVID-19. Therefore, we do anticipate that the resource availability of our customers may fluctuate over the coming months. However, existing customers are demonstrating a clear desire to expand their relationships with us at a time when servicing their account holders remotely is so critical, and these cross-sell bookings have a quicker time to revenue. Therefore, I expect the mix to shift somewhat toward more cross-sell bookings from new customer bookings, which I believe also will help mitigate any revenue impact in the current year.In February, we began taking proactive measures to mitigate the impact of reduced revenue on our profitability. We started by limiting travel, attendance at trade shows and conferences and postponing the on-boarding of additional resources to deliver new bookings. While we ultimately feel our solutions will be in greater demand as our customers emerge from this disruption, COVID-19 and its related circumstances have created uncertainties in the market, and we are proactively managing our business accordingly while continuing to position Q2 for the longer-term success. I'll now quickly review our results for the first quarter of 2020.Please note that all numbers referenced in my remarks are on a non-GAAP basis, unless otherwise stated. Total non-GAAP revenue for the first quarter was $93.8 million, an increase of 32% year over year and up 6% from the previous quarter. Our increased revenue was largely the result of growth in subscription and services revenue. Subscription revenue growth was driven by the combination of organic user growth and customer go-lives in the quarter, in addition to the increased revenue contribution from PrecisionLender as we observed a full quarter of revenue in Q1 as compared to two months of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2019.Services revenue also benefited from net new go-lives in the quarter, as well as an increase in other professional services, in particular, the growth in premier services engagements within our Tier 1 customer base during the period. As Matt mentioned, nearly half of the net new go-lives that took place in the quarter came in March after our transition to working remotely. Transaction revenue represented 14% of total revenue in the quarter, down from 16% in the prior-year period and consistent with the previous quarter. The year-over-year decline in transaction revenue as a percentage of total revenue is primarily attributable to the increased subscription revenue contribution from PrecisionLender.Turning to backlog. We experienced a sequential increase of approximately $48 million or 4%, ending the quarter with a total committed backlog of over $1.2 billion, a 30% increase over the ending backlog at March 31, 2019. The addition of PrecisionLender backlog contributed roughly 2.5% of the year-over-year increase. Matt spoke to the fact that much of our cross-sale success came from customer renewals and contract extensions, which accounted for over a third of our additions to the backlog during the quarter.For perspective, bookings related to renewals and contract extensions in the quarter were over three times higher than they were in the first quarter of 2019. Gross margin was 53.1%, up from 52.3% in the first quarter of 2019 and down from 56.8% in the previous quarter. The year-over-year increase was attributable to growth in subscription revenue, combined with a reduced mix of lower-margin transaction revenue, as well as the lower-than-anticipated travel-related expenses during the quarter as a result of restrictions related to COVID-19. The sequential decline was primarily driven by the seasonal increase in hiring that typically occurs in Q1, as well as increased payroll taxes driven by the timing of annual bonus and commission payments, combined with the reset of annual social security caps. The increased hiring was focused primarily on adding implementation and support capacity to continue servicing our customer growth.Total operating expenses were $52.8 million, up 32% from the prior-year period and up 23% from the previous quarter. The year-over-year increase was primarily related to the acquisition of PrecisionLender in the fourth quarter of 2019. Excluding the addition of PrecisionLender, operating, operating expenses would have been up approximately 14% year over year, driven primarily by increased headcounts.The sequential increase was also primarily driven from the headcount additions and related employee expenses, including the full quarter impact of PrecisionLender as opposed to only two months in the previous quarter. The sequential increase in expense was concentrated within R&D and G&A as PrecisionLender's headcount was concentrated heavily in R&D, and much of their security compliance and operating costs are included within G&A.Sales and marketing expenses were lower than originally expected during the quarter due to the reduction in expenses associated with travel, trade shows and other marketing events. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $100,000, down from positive $300,000 in the first quarter of 2019 and down from $10.6 million in the previous quarter, largely due to the acquisition of PrecisionLender.These results were, however, better than our previously issued guidance of negative $3 million to negative $2 million. This was in large part because of the proactive steps we took in restricting travel and the related decreases in trade shows, conferences and other marketing expenses, along with the fact that revenue came in near the high end of our guidance range. During the first quarter, we also began to reprioritize internal resources, moving them away from net new customer sales and marketing and toward the execution of ongoing implementation projects and reducing the existing backlog. We intend to closely monitor the situation and remain in a position to reengage in new opportunities as our customers and prospects make new buying decisions and their internal resources become available.We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and investments of $112.8 million, down from $132.4 million at the end of the fourth quarter. Cash flow used in operations for the first quarter was negative $15.8 million, driven largely by the timing of our annual bonus payout, RSU vestings and the related payroll taxes. We incurred net capital expenditures of $4.6 million and $300,000 of software development capitalization, resulting in free cash flow of negative $20.7 million for the quarter. Now let me turn to our updated guidance.We are forecasting second quarter non-GAAP revenue in the range of $94 million to $96 million, and we are revising full-year revenue guidance to a range of $393 million to $400 million, representing 24% to 26% year-over-year growth. This guidance range is wider than typically provided. Given the level of uncertainty around when new bookings and project time lines will return to a more normal level. As I mentioned previously, this guidance reflects revised expectations for our digital lending businesses due to their focus on the enterprise and international markets.Based on the data we have observed thus far, we are cautiously factoring in prolonged delays in decision-making and implementations among enterprise and international customers as the focus for their lending personnel previously engaged in our implementations have been shifted to focus on critical COVID-19-related initiatives.We believe PrecisionLender's total revenue contribution for the full year of 2020 will have a floor in the mid-$20 million range as their revenue contribution will likely be concentrated around upsells and renewals to existing customers rather than the addition of new enterprise revenue streams. In addition, we expect Cloud Lending revenue for 2020 will likely see between a 5% and 10% decrease from our previous revenue forecast due to slow decision-making on new digital lending and leasing deals and implementation project delays. As mentioned earlier, in April, we quickly launched an end-to-end digital lending solution to help our financial institutions and fintech customers distribute funds made available by the Paycheck Protection Program.Our revised guidance reflects the incremental revenue that we have visibility into thus far and partially offsets the anticipated decrease in new revenue from our Cloud Lending businesses. Note, however, that these incremental revenues will likely create a negative comparison in 2021 as these contracts are generally structured to be one year in length. The remaining reduction in full-year revenue guidance reflects our current assumptions related to the potential impact of COVID-19 on our digital banking and banking as a service businesses. This includes a combination of the anticipated slowdown in net new bookings, delays in implementation projects and anticipated customer concessions or increases in churn based on the economic impact our customers are experiencing as a result of this pandemic.As Matt mentioned, we have a healthy customer base, but we are mindful of the potential exposure we may have with some of our smaller financial institutions, as well as those fintech customers who rely on additional funding to sustain their operations. We are forecasting the overall impact to the digital banking and banking as a service businesses to equate to approximately a 2% reduction from our previous revenue forecast. We forecast second-quarter adjusted EBITDA of $3 million to $4 million, and we are pleased to reiterate our previous full-year guidance range of $16 million to $19 million despite the lower-than-anticipated revenue, resulting in adjusted EBITDA margins for the full year of approximately 4% to 5%. The improved profitability is a result of us taking proactive steps to slow hiring, combined with the travel, facilities and other discretionary cost savings we are experiencing due to travel and shelter in place restrictions related to COVID-19.As I previously mentioned, we believe that our guidance today demonstrates that we intend to continue to monitor engagement with customers and prospects and manage our expenses and existing resources accordingly while still making investments that we believe position us to serve our customers as their focus and engagement normalizes over time. We ended the first quarter with a strong balance sheet that we believe will continue to provide comfort to our customers and prospects alike. We remain confident in our ability to sustain business operations with the cash we have on hand today and manage the inflow of new business with any additional expenses required to service them. In the second quarter, we will disburse the final earn-out payment related to the Cloud Lending acquisition, which will be approximately $21 million.Additionally, I would expect an increase in the level of our capital expenditures for 2020 as we are making it a priority to ensure we have the data center infrastructure and capacity necessary to support the elevated levels of digital engagement, our existing customers are experiencing, as well as the increase in new users associated with go-live scheduled for later in the year. While we have not yet experienced any material Covid-related impact to DSOs, we may see an uptick in the third quarter due to the higher-than-normal volume of annual billings that occur near the end of that quarter and typically are not collected until the beginning of the fourth quarter. Additionally, any extended payment terms requested as a result of COVID-19 impacts on our customers' business could negatively impact our DSOs. I expect we increased investment necessary to handle the increased levels of user engagement, the slowdown in bookings and related upfront customer deposits and the potential impacts associated with any customer concessions could hinder our ability to be free cash flow positive for the year.However, the increase in digital engagement will provide the opportunity for accelerated organic user growth going forward. And when combined with the extension of existing customer contract terms and the related increase in committed backlog, as this crisis subsides, we believe Q2 will be extremely well positioned to capitalize on the next wave of digital transformation. In summary, we will continue to partner with our customers and allocate our resources to service our customers in their greatest areas of need. We feel confident that we have the market positioning, financial strength, skilled workforce and enhanced procedures in place to manage through this crisis. Meanwhile, we will remain prepared so that we can continue to partner with and deliver for our customers as they move forward with their digital transformations.With that, I'll turn the call back to Matt for his closing remarks.