Jeff Kalowski
Analyst · William Blair. Your line is open
Thanks, Corey, and good afternoon, everyone. We are very pleased with our strong performance in the first quarter, with results that exceeded our guidance on all metrics. Total revenue for the first quarter was $73.2 million, above the high end of our guidance and an increase of 34% year-over-year. Our strong ARR growth of 51% drove 48% growth in recurring revenue. Recurring revenue now constitutes 85% of total revenue compared to 77% a year ago, highlighting our successful transition to a recurring revenue business model. Our focus on recurring revenue drove a 60% increase in our product revenue, which was once again driven by strong growth across VM, IDR, and Application Security. This was partially offset by a decline in maintenance and support revenue, as Nexpose customers migrate to the Insight platform, resulting in reclassification of maintenance revenue to product revenue. Therefore, it makes sense to look at product and maintenance and support revenue together, which collectively grew at 43% year-over-year. As expected and as we mentioned in our prior earnings call, with the favorable shift towards ARR bookings, we experienced a slowdown in our professional services revenue which declined by 13% when compared to Q1 2018. We expect the services revenue to stabilize in the second half of 2019. Looking at the business geographically, revenue from North America grew by 34% and comprised 85% of total revenue. Revenue for rest of world grew by 37% year-over-year and comprised 15% of total revenue in the first quarter. Total ARR grew to $268.2 million at the end of the first quarter, a 51% increase year-over-year. ARR growth was driven by strong new customer growth as well as expansion into our install base. For the first time, IDR comprised over 30% of new ARR bookings. Our customer account increased by 12% year-over-year and we ended Q1 with more than 7,900 customers globally. The quality of our customer base continues to improve as higher growth in our product customers more than offset the decline in service-only customers. Our customer economics remain strong, with average ARR per customer increasing to almost $34,000, up 35% year-over-year. Calculated billings for the first quarter was $61.1 million, a 27% year-over-year growth. This was driven by both strong new ARR bookings and renewals performance, partially offset by a decline in average contract length and professional services bookings. Contract length for Q1 2019 was 15 months, down from 18 months in Q1 2018 and a decline from an average contract length of 16 months we reported in Q4 2018. Our overall renewal rate was 120% in Q1 2019, which again reflected the strong growth in ARR. With our transition to a predominantly SaaS and recurring revenue business model almost complete and combined with our expectation of ARR growth of 30%-plus in 2019 versus growth of 53% last year, we expect the overall renewal rate to decline slightly this year. As we mentioned before, our primary focus this year is drive a higher customer satisfaction and higher ARR per customer through multi-product adoption. Hence, we believe expiring renewal rate or ERR is no longer a meaningful metric as we move forward. As a result we will only be disclosing the overall renewal rate, which we believe is more relevant, and our overall retention remains strong. Turning to margins, total non-GAAP gross margin in Q1 2019 improved to 75%, up from 72% last year and 74% last quarter. We are benefiting from a shift towards a more favorable mix of higher margin product revenue. Product non-GAAP gross margin was 81%, up from 79% in Q1 2018 and slightly up from 80% last quarter. Professional services non-GAAP gross margins declined to 28% when compared to a margin of 30% in Q4 2018 due to lower revenue as part of our continued focus on ARR and more strategic professional services. During the first quarter, sales and marketing expense decreased to 45% of revenue when compared to Q1 2018 expense of 50%. This improvement reflects the operating leverage inherent in our business model, but is also driven by the timing of some hiring that was pushed out to future periods. R&D expenses were 20% of revenue in Q1 2019 as compared to 26% in Q1 2018 and 22% in Q4 2018. This lower percentage of revenue partially reflects an increase in capitalized software to account for increased investments in our Insight SaaS platform. G&A expenses in Q1 2019 were 10% of revenue compared to 12% in Q1 2018 and 11% in Q4 2018. For Q1 2019, we generated non-GAAP operating income of approximately $600,000, well ahead of our guidance. Non-GAAP operating margin was 0.8% compared to a margin of negative 16% in Q1 2018 and negative 4% in Q4 2018. This improvement is primarily driven by the over-performance in revenue combined with the timing of some expenses that were pushed to future quarters. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $2.6 million and diluted non-GAAP net income per share was $0.02, also well ahead of our guidance. We ended Q1 with cash, cash equivalents and investments of $285.1 million. This compares to $303.7 million as of Q4 2018. During the quarter, operating cash flow was negative $13.6 million as compared to positive $7.3 million in the prior year. Approximately half of this decrease was due to the decline in contract length from the model shift to subscription and to the decline in professional services billings. The balance was due to timing of collections, which were strong in early Q2 and were still projecting positive operating cash flow for the full year of 2019. In April we acquired NetFort for $15 million in cash. While NetFort is not expected to have a material impact on 2019 revenue, we will be absorbing their R&D expenses for the rest of the year. I also want to point out that as of Q1, we adopted a new lease accounting standard, ASC 842. This lease standard drives a net increase in assets and liabilities of $15.9 million on the balance sheet, which represents the present value of our lease payments. The adoption of the new lease standard has no impact on our income statement, operating cash flow or free cash flow. Now moving onto the guidance. For Q2 2019 we anticipate total revenue to be in the range of $74.3 million to $75.9 million. As I mentioned before, some of the hiring and investments we intended to do in Q1 have been pushed out, resulting in higher expenses in Q2. Hence, we anticipate non-GAAP operating loss in Q2 2019 to be in the range of $4.7 million to $3.7 million. We anticipate non-GAAP net loss per share for Q2 to be in the range of $0.08 to $0.06, which is based on our anticipated 48.4 million weighted average shares outstanding. For the full year of 2019, we’re raising our guidance and now anticipate total revenue to be in the range of $312 million to $318 million, which is a 29% growth over 2018 at the midpoint. While we’re pleased to report non-GAAP operating income for the first quarter, we continue to see plenty of investment opportunities. We believe these investments will further help improve customer experience, drive growth and obtain long-term leverage in our cost structure. As we stated in our fourth quarter call, we will invest any upside back into the business. And as a result, we are still guiding to breakeven non-GAAP operating income for 2019. This guidance includes the expenses related to the NetFort acquisition. We anticipate non-GAAP net income per share to be $0.05, which is based on an estimated 52.3 million diluted weighted average shares outstanding. The weighted average shares outstanding for the second quarter of 2019 represent basic shares outstanding, given our projected non-GAAP net loss. The weighted average shares outstanding for the full year of 2019 represent the diluted shares outstanding, given our projected non-GAAP net income. Non-GAAP income for the 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. 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, Rapid7 had a great start to 2019 and we look forward to delivering strong ARR and revenue growth, while significantly improving non-GAAP operating margin. With that, we appreciate your time and support and we’ll open the call for any questions. Operator?