Project management software maker Monday.com (NASDAQ:MNDY) beat analysts' expectations in Q4 FY2023, with revenue up 35.1% year on year to $202.6 million. The company expects next quarter's revenue to be around $209 million, in line with analysts' estimates. It made a non-GAAP profit of $0.65 per share, improving from its loss of $0.03 per share in the same quarter last year.
Monday.com (MNDY) Q4 FY2023 Highlights:
- Revenue: $202.6 million vs analyst estimates of $197.8 million (2.4% beat)
- EPS (non-GAAP): $0.65 vs analyst estimates of $0.32 (100% beat)
- Revenue Guidance for Q1 2024 is $209 million at the midpoint, roughly in line with what analysts were expecting
- Management's revenue guidance for the upcoming financial year 2024 is $929 million at the midpoint, in line with analyst expectations and implying 27.3% growth (vs 41.2% in FY2023)
- Management's adjusted operating income guidance for the upcoming financial year 2024 is $61 million at the midpoint, below analyst expectations of $68 million
- Free Cash Flow of $55.44 million, down 14.6% from the previous quarter
- Net Revenue Retention Rate: 115%, up from 110% in the previous quarter
- Customers: 2,295 customers paying more than $50,000 annually
- Gross Margin (GAAP): 88.9%, in line with the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $11.39 billion
Founded in Israel in 2014, and named after the dreaded first day of the work week, Monday.com (NASDAQ:MNDY) makes software as a service platforms that helps teams plan and track work efficiently.
A lot of project planning and management work is still done with a mixture of emails, spreadsheets that only exist on one person’s computer, hand written notes and in-person meetings. As a result, a lot of time is lost tracking down who does what, when, and how, with team managers organizing multiple meetings to get accurate updates on the progress of a project.
To help companies better plan their work, Monday.com provides them with a centralized online dashboard where tasks can be created, assigned and tracked. The platform integrates with other applications such as email, calendar or online document storage and is able to automate basic workflows such as sending emails when a task is due or importing information from a document. The key point is that the project management software becomes a system of record for the whole team, a central place where the information is always available and up to date. To make project managers even more efficient, Monday.com also provides them with a number of reusable templates that make it easy for them to create marketing dashboards, budget calculators and manage approval flows.
For example when developing a video game, the project manager can set up all the tasks in Monday.com including cost estimates and ask the client for approval on each of them. Once the work begins, the company management can see what the engineering team is working on in real time, and using the cost vs time tracking can easily tell if there’s a chance the cost might be higher than what was initially calculated.
Project Management Software
The future of work requires teams to collaborate across departments and remote offices. Project management software is both driving this change and benefiting from it. While the trend of collaborative work management has been strong for a while, the Covid pandemic has definitively accelerated the demand for tools that allow work to be done remotely.
Other competitors in the project management space include Smartsheet (NYSE:SMAR), Asana (NYSE:ASAN), and Trello which is owned by Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM).
Sales Growth
As you can see below, Monday.com's revenue growth has been exceptional over the last two years, growing from $95.55 million in Q4 FY2021 to $202.6 million this quarter.
Unsurprisingly, this was another great quarter for Monday.com with revenue up 35.1% year on year. Quarter on quarter, its revenue increased by $13.38 million in Q4, which was roughly in line with the Q3 2023 increase. This steady growth shows that the company can maintain a strong growth trajectory.
Next quarter's guidance suggests that Monday.com is expecting revenue to grow 28.8% year on year to $209 million, slowing down from the 49.5% year-on-year increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. For the upcoming financial year, management expects revenue to be $929 million at the midpoint, growing 27.3% year on year compared to the 40.6% increase in FY2023.
Large Customers Growth
This quarter, Monday.com reported 2,295 enterprise customers paying more than $50,000 annually, an increase of 218 from the previous quarter. That's quite a bit more contract wins than last quarter and quite a bit above what we've typically observed in past quarters, demonstrating that the business has good sales momentum. We've no doubt shareholders will take this as an indication that the company's go-to-market strategy is working very well.
Product Success
One of the best parts about the software-as-a-service business model (and a reason why SaaS companies trade at such high valuation multiples) is that customers typically spend more on a company's products and services over time.
Monday.com's net revenue retention rate, a key performance metric measuring how much money existing customers from a year ago are spending today, was 115% in Q4. This means that even if Monday.com didn't win any new customers over the last 12 months, it would've grown its revenue by 15%.
Significantly up from the last quarter, Monday.com has a good net retention rate, proving that customers are satisfied with its software and getting more value from it over time, which is always great 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. Monday.com's gross profit margin, an important metric measuring how much money there's left after paying for servers, licenses, technical support, and other necessary running expenses, was 88.9% in Q4.
That means that for every $1 in revenue the company had $0.89 left to spend on developing new products, sales and marketing, and general administrative overhead. Monday.com's excellent gross margin allows it to fund large investments in product and sales during periods of rapid growth and achieve profitability when reaching maturity. It's also comforting to see its gross margin remain stable, indicating that Monday.com is controlling its costs and not under pressure from its competitors to lower prices.
Cash Is King
If you've followed StockStory for a while, you know that we emphasize free cash flow. Why, you ask? We believe that in the end, cash is king, and you can't use accounting profits to pay the bills. Monday.com's free cash flow came in at $55.44 million in Q4, up 86.9% year on year.
Monday.com has generated $204.9 million in free cash flow over the last 12 months, an eye-popping 27.9% of revenue. This robust FCF margin stems from its asset-lite business model, scale advantages, and strong competitive positioning, giving it the option to return capital to shareholders or reinvest in its business while maintaining a healthy cash balance.
Key Takeaways from Monday.com's Q4 Results
We were impressed by Monday.com's growth in net revenue retention this quarter. We were also glad its revenue outperformed Wall Street's estimates. On the other hand, its revenue guidance for next year suggests a significant slowdown in demand, and operating income guidance for the same period was below expectations. Zooming out, we think this was still a mixed quarter with the guidance dragging the stock down. The market was likely expecting more, and the stock is down 7% after reporting, trading at $220 per share.
Is Now The Time?
When considering an investment in Monday.com, investors should take into account its valuation and business qualities as well as what's happened in the latest quarter.
There are several reasons why we think Monday.com is a great business. While we'd expect growth rates to moderate from here, its . Additionally, its impressive gross margins indicate excellent business economics, and its bountiful generation of free cash flow empowers it to invest in growth initiatives.
Monday.com's price-to-sales ratio based on the next 12 months of 13.2x indicates that the market is definitely optimistic about its growth prospects. But looking at the tech landscape today, Monday.com's qualities stand out and we still like it at this price.
Wall Street analysts covering the company had a one-year price target of $232.99 per share right before these results (compared to the current share price of $220), implying they saw upside in buying Monday.com in the short term.
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 of 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.