Low code software development platform provider Appian (Nasdaq: APPN) announced better-than-expected results in the Q4 FY2022 quarter, with revenue up 19.8% year on year to $125.8 million. The company expects that next quarter's revenue would be around $131 million, which is the midpoint of the guidance range. That was in roughly line with analyst expectations. Appian made a GAAP loss of $34.4 million, down on its loss of $25.8 million, in the same quarter last year.
Appian (APPN) Q4 FY2022 Highlights:
- Revenue: $125.8 million vs analyst estimates of $122.8 million (2.45% beat)
- EPS (non-GAAP): -$0.28 vs analyst estimates of -$0.40
- Revenue guidance for Q1 2023 is $131 million at the midpoint, roughly in line with what analysts were expecting
- Management's revenue guidance for upcoming financial year 2023 is $532.5 million at the midpoint, in line with analyst expectations and predicting 13.8% growth (vs 27.1% in FY2022)
- Free cash flow was negative $15.8 million, compared to negative free cash flow of $44.9 million in previous quarter
- Net Revenue Retention Rate: 115%, in line with previous quarter
- Gross Margin (GAAP): 72%, down from 73.1% same quarter last year
Founded by Matt Calkins and his three friends out of an apartment in Northern Virginia, Appian (NASDAQ:APPN) sells a software platform that lets its users build applications without using much code, allowing them to create new software more quickly.
By empowering existing teams within specialist organisations, Appian lets its diverse customers, from banks to wind farms, build the exact software they need. This might mean creating new interfaces for tellers, or building a process for acquiring and managing wind farm insurance. By making software development easier with pre-existing segments of code, Appian's customers can build and deploy new functionality far more quickly, and potentially at lower cost, than if they had to hire more team members to build it without Appian.
Appian was started by four young friends, including long-serving CEO Matt Calkins who quit his job before settling on a business plan. It wasn't until a few years later that the company began to focus on business process management, helping companies become more efficient. Today, Appian can potentially allow any employee to develop the specific custom software that their business needs.
The whole purpose of software is to automate tasks to increase productivity. Today, innovative new software techniques, often involving AI and machine learning, are finally allowing automation that has graduated from simple one- or two-step workflows to more complex processes integral to enterprises. The result is surging demand for modern automation software.
Other providers of low code software include Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA), IBM (NYSE:IBM), and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL).
Sales Growth
As you can see below, Appian's revenue growth has been strong over the last two years, growing from quarterly revenue of $81.6 million in Q4 FY2020, to $125.8 million.
This quarter, Appian's quarterly revenue was once again up 19.8% year on year. We can see that revenue increased by $7.91 million in Q4, which was roughly the same as in Q3 2022. This steady quarter-on-quarter growth shows the company is able to maintain its paced growth trajectory.
Guidance for the next quarter indicates Appian is expecting revenue to grow 14.6% year on year to $131 million, slowing down from the 28.6% year-over-year increase in revenue the company had recorded in the same quarter last year. For the upcoming financial year management expects revenue to be $532.5 million at the midpoint, growing 13.8% compared to 26.7% increase in FY2022.
Product Success
One of the best things about software as a service businesses (and a reason why they trade at such high multiples) is that customers tend to spend more with the company over time.
Appian's net revenue retention rate, an important measure of how much customers from a year ago were spending at the end of the quarter, was at 115% in Q4. That means even if they didn't win any new customers, Appian would have grown its revenue 15% year on year. That is a good retention rate and a proof that Appian's customers are satisfied with their software and are getting more value from it over time. That is good to see.
Profitability
What makes the software as a service business so attractive is that once the software is developed, it typically shouldn't cost much to provide it as an ongoing service to customers. Appian's gross profit margin, an important metric measuring how much money there is left after paying for servers, licenses, technical support and other necessary running expenses was at 72% in Q4.
That means that for every $1 in revenue the company had $0.72 left to spend on developing new products, marketing & sales and the general administrative overhead. This is around the lower average of what we typically see in SaaS businesses. Gross margin has a major impact on a company’s ability to invest in developing new products and sales & marketing, which may ultimately determine the winner in a competitive market so it is important to track.
Cash Is King
If you have followed StockStory for a while, you know that we put an emphasis on cash flow. Why, you ask? We believe that in the end cash is king, as you can't use accounting profits to pay the bills. Appian burned through $15.8 million in Q4,
Appian has burned through $115.6 million in cash over the last twelve months, a negative 24.7% free cash flow margin. This low FCF margin is a result of Appian's need to still heavily invest in the business.
Key Takeaways from Appian's Q4 Results
Since it has still been burning cash over the last twelve months it is worth keeping an eye on Appian’s balance sheet, but we note that with a market capitalization of $3.21 billion and more than $196 million in cash, the company has the capacity to continue to prioritise growth over profitability.
It was good to see Appian outperform Wall St’s revenue expectations this quarter. That feature of these results really stood out as a positive. On the other hand, the revenue guidance for next year indicates a significant slowdown and the revenue guidance for the next quarter slightly missed analysts' expectations. Overall, this quarter's results could have been better. The company is flat on the results and currently trades at $45 per share.
Is Now The Time?
When considering Appian, investors should take into account its valuation and business qualities, as well as what happened in the latest quarter. We cheer for everyone who is making the lives of others easier through technology, but in case of Appian we will be cheering from the sidelines. Its revenue growth has been solid, though we don't expect it to maintain historical growth rates. But while its very efficient customer acquisition hints at the potential for strong profitability, the downside is that its growth is coming at a cost of significant cash burn and its gross margins aren't as good as other tech businesses we look at.
Given its price to sales ratio based on the next twelve months is 6.1x, Appian is priced with expectations of a long-term growth, and there's no doubt it is a bit of a market darling, at least for some. While we have no doubt one can find things to like about the company, and the price is not completely unreasonable, we think that at the moment there might be better opportunities in the market.
To get the best start with StockStory check out our most recent Stock picks, and then sign up to our earnings alerts by adding companies to your watchlist here. We typically have the quarterly earnings results analyzed within seconds from the data being released, and especially for the companies reporting pre-market, this often gives investors the chance to react to the results before the market has fully absorbed the information.