Jeff Kalowski
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets
Thanks, Corey and good afternoon, everyone. We're very pleased with our strong performance in the fourth quarter with results that exceeded guidance on all metrics. As Corey mentioned, we believe Rapid7 has established itself as a high growth cloud software company on a path to sustainable profitability. Before I begin discussing our strong results for the fourth quarter and full year 2018, I want to remind everyone for the last time that as of January 1, 2018, we adopted ASC 606 on a modified retrospective basis; and therefore, we've been reporting each quarter's results in 2018 under both, ASC 606 and ASC 605. We've included all of these details in our earnings press release today. When discussing our year-over-year growth rates and other key trends in our business, we will be comparing our results on an ASC 605 basis as we don't have prior year operating results under ASC 606, and the comparison would not be meaningful. Moving forward, all results will be under ASC 606. We set a high bar for our operational and financial goals for 2018 and we exceeded them. With four key products on our Insight platform, we now have multiple levers for growth. We successfully transitioned to a recurring revenue model with over 83% of our total revenue that was recurring in Q4 2018, up from under 70% in Q4 2017 under ASC 605. Also 94% of our product revenue was recurring in Q4 2018, up from 81% in Q4 2017, again under ASC 605. At the beginning of 2018 we regarded for ARR growth of at least 30%, and we delivered 53% growth. We ended the year with revenue of $244 million under ASC 606, a significant feat despite a decline in services revenue. We also delivered on the high-end of our operating income guidance reporting a non-GAAP operating loss of $20 million while investing the upside in the business to further drive long-term growth in scale. All in all, a very strong year. Let's turn to our fourth quarter 2018 results; first on an ASC 605 basis. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $70.6 million, an increase of 22% year-over-year and recurring revenue grew by 47%. Looking at the business geographically in Q4, North America comprised 85% of revenue, growing 21% year-over-year. Rest of World revenue increased 30% year-over-year and contributed 15% of total revenue in the fourth quarter. Our focus on recurring revenue drove a 50% increase in our product revenue offset by a decline in maintenance and support and services revenue. As perpetual customers migrate to the inside platform, maintenance revenue is reclassified to product revenue [ph]. Non-GAAP operating loss in the fourth quarter was $7.2 million on an ASC 605 basis, an improvement compared to a loss of $7.6 million in the prior year period. Our non-GAAP operating margin improved from a loss of 13% in Q4 last year to a loss of 10% for Q4 2018. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $5.2 million for the fourth quarter compared to a loss of $6.3 million in the prior year period. Now, I will discuss fourth quarter results on an ASC 606 basis. Total revenue was $68.8 million above the high-end of our guidance. Our product revenue was once again driven by strong and broad-based ARR bookings growth across VM, IDR and Application Security. With a favorable shift towards ARR bookings, as expected, we experienced a slowdown in our professional services bookings. Visibility into our revenue forecast remains very high, recurring revenue was 83% of total revenue and 93% of product revenue, 82% of total revenue came from deferred revenue in the balance sheet at the beginning of the quarter. The value of our annualized recurring revenue increased to $251.8 million at the end of the fourth quarter, a 53% increase year-over-year and an acceleration from 46% growth in Q3 on top of 36% growth for the full year 2017. Calculated billings for the fourth quarter was $94.3 million driven by strong new ARR bookings, as well as strong renewals performance. Average contract length was 16 months for total billings, down significantly from 25 months in the prior year period, and a slight decline from an average contract length of the 17 months we reported in Q3. We once again saw our customers shift towards one-year contracts with our move towards a subscription-based business model. As a reminder, we don't believe billings are a meaningful comparison to prior periods during this transition as they don't capture the benefit of a higher subscription mix and growth of our annual recurring revenue. Based on a trend over the last few quarters we anticipate that contract lengths will remain in this range going forward. Our customer count increased by 11% year-over-year but we ended Q4 with more than 7,800 customers globally. Our customer growth reaccelerated despite a decline in the number of non-recurring services-only customers as we saw an increase in the growth of our product customers driven by the high growth of Insight platform customers. As a result, the customer base continues to improve and in Q4 our ARR per average customer increased to over $32,000 which is up 38% year-over-year. Overall, we continue to see strong bookings from new customers, upsells and cross-sells. Our expiring renewal rate remained at a high of 90% in the fourth quarter and our renewal rate was 120%, this reflected the strong growth in ARR. Turning to margins; total non-GAAP gross margin in Q4 2018 improved sequentially, up slightly to 74%. We're benefiting from a shift towards higher margin product revenue, as well as a stabilization in our product margins as we achieved more scale on our cloud platform. Product non-GAAP gross margin was 80%, up from 79% in Q3 2018. Professional services non-GAAP gross margins decreased to 30% from 32% in Q3 2018 due to lower revenue as a result of lower services bookings with the focus on ARR and more strategic professional services. During the fourth quarter sales and marketing expense decreased to 45% of revenue. We've realized almost 600 basis points of leverage in sales and marketing since Q1 2018 while continuing to show meaningful growth in ARR. R&D expenses were 22% of revenue, in line with Q3. G&A expenses were 11% of revenue, higher than in Q3 reflecting higher professional fees. Our non-GAAP operating loss was $2.7 million, well ahead of our guidance of a loss of $5.5 million to $4.5 million, and our operating margin improved to negative 4% compared to a negative 4.5% in Q3 2018. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was a loss of $0.7 million. Non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.05 in Q4 2018, also well ahead of our guidance. In 2018 we strengthened the balance sheet with a follow-on offering and then a convertible notes offering. These proceeds will enable us to continue to make strategic investments to extend our growth opportunity such as the tCell acquisition for which we paid $14.5 million in Q4 2018. We ended Q4 with cash, cash equivalents and investments of $303.7 million; this compares to $311.1 million as of Q3 2018. Our Q4 cash flow from operations was $11.9 million which reflected strong cash collections. Now, I will summarize full year 2018 results under ASC 606. Total revenue was $244.1 million, non-GAAP operating loss was $20.4 million, and non-GAAP EPS was a loss of $0.41; all beating the high-end of our most recent guidance. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $13.4 million. Cash provided by operating activities was $6.1 million for the full year 2018 compared to $13.3 million in 2017. Cash flow from operations for the year was impacted by a rapid shift to subscription revenue and shorter contract lengths, and a decrease in professional services bookings. However, the speed at which we transition to a subscription model is a strong positive for the long-term growth and profitability of our business. Now moving on to the guidance; as you might recall during our Analyst Day at the end of 2017, we set ARR growth expectations to be 30% CAGR through 2020. We're happy to say we achieved ARR growth of 53% in 2018, and again expect to be growing ARR by over 30% in 2019. For Q1 2019 we anticipate total revenue to be in the range of $68.9 million to $70.5 million. We anticipate non-GAAP operating loss to be in the range of $5.5 million to $4.5 million. We anticipate non-GAAP net loss per share for Q1 to be in the range of $0.10 to $0.08 which is based on an anticipated $47.9 million weighted average shares outstanding. For the full year of 2019 we anticipate total revenue to be in the range of $304 million to $312 million, which is 26% growth at the midpoint. We expect non-GAAP operating income to be breakeven in 2019 which is a meaningful improvement from the $20 million lost in 2018. As Corey mentioned, we'll continue to make additional investments and we expect to invest any upside back into the business. We believe these investments will support a much larger business delivering improved scale and sustainable levels of profitability in 2020 and beyond. We anticipate non-GAAP net income per share to be $0.05 which is based on an anticipated $51.9 million diluted weighted average shares outstanding. The weighted average shares outstanding for the first quarter of 2019 represent basic shares outstanding given our projected non-GAAP net loss. The weighted average shares outstanding for the full year 2019 represent the diluted shares outstanding given our projected non-GAAP net income. Non-GAAP net income for full year 2019 largely represents interest income on projected cash and investments. On a GAAP basis we expect a full year net loss for 2019. We expect cash flow from operations to again be positive in 2019. As a reminder, we're moving our global headquarters and consolidating facilities this year, and hence our free cash flow will be negative as a result of significant capital improvements in 2019 but these expenditures will decline substantially in 2020. In conclusion, this was another strong quarter and year for Rapid7 driven by significant ARR growth, shift towards the cloud and subscription revenue, and realized leverage in the business. With that, we appreciate your time and support, and we'll open the call for any questions. Operator?