Attached files
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EX-32.1 - EXHIBIT 32.1 - NEW RELIC, INC. | newr123117ex321.htm |
EX-31.2 - EXHIBIT 31.2 - NEW RELIC, INC. | newr123117ex312.htm |
EX-31.1 - EXHIBIT 31.1 - NEW RELIC, INC. | newr123117ex311.htm |
EX-10.2 - EXHIBIT 10.2 - NEW RELIC, INC. | newr123117ex102.htm |
EX-10.1 - EXHIBIT 10.1 - NEW RELIC, INC. | newr123117ex101.htm |
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D. C. 20549
_________________________________________________
FORM 10-Q
_________________________________________________
ý | QUARTERLY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the quarterly period ended December 31, 2017
or
¨ | TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the transition period from to
Commission File Number: 001-36766
_________________________________________________
New Relic, Inc.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
_________________________________________________
Delaware | 26-2017431 | |
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) | (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) |
188 Spear Street, Suite 1200
San Francisco, California 94105
(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)
(650) 777-7600
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ý No ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ý No ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer | ☒ | Accelerated filer | ☐ | |||
Non-accelerated filer | ☐ (Do not check if a small reporting company) | Smaller reporting company | ☐ | |||
Emerging growth company | ☐ |
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ¨ No ý
As of January 26, 2018, there were 55,441,340 shares of the registrant’s common stock, par value $0.001 per share, outstanding.
NEW RELIC, INC.
Form 10-Q Quarterly Report
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page | ||
Item 1. | ||
Item 2. | ||
Item 3. | ||
Item 4. | ||
Item 1. | ||
Item 1A. | ||
Item 2. | ||
Item 3. | ||
Item 4. | ||
Item 5. | ||
Item 6. | ||
Unless the context requires otherwise, references in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q to “New Relic,” “we,” “Company,” “us,” and “our” refer to New Relic, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries. “New Relic,” the New Relic logo, and other trademarks or service marks of New Relic that may appear in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q are the property of the Company. This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains additional trade names, trademarks, and service marks of other companies. The Company does not intend its use or display of other companies’ trade names, trademarks, or service marks to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of the Company by, these other companies, and all such third-party trade names, trademarks, and service marks are the property of their respective owners.
SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “shall,” “might,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “intends,” “target,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” or “continue” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans, or intentions. Forward-looking statements contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q include, but are not limited to, statements about:
• | our future financial performance, including our revenue, cost of revenue, gross profit, gross margin, operating expenses, ability to generate positive cash flow, and ability to achieve and maintain GAAP (as defined below) and non-GAAP profitability; |
• | use of non-GAAP financial measures; |
• | the sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents to meet our working capital, capital expenditure, and liquidity needs; |
• | our ability to attract and retain customers to use our products, to optimize the pricing for our products, to expand our sales to our customers, and to convince our existing customers to renew subscriptions; |
• | the evolution of technologies affecting our products and markets; |
• | our ability to innovate and provide a superior user experience and our intentions and strategy with respect thereto; |
• | our ability to successfully penetrate enterprise markets; |
• | our ability to successfully expand in our existing markets and into new markets, including international markets; |
• | the attraction and retention of key personnel; |
• | our ability to effectively manage our growth and future expenses; |
• | our ability to maintain, protect, and enhance our intellectual property; |
• | worldwide economic conditions and their impact on spending; and |
• | our ability to comply with modified or new laws and regulations applying to our business, including privacy and data security regulations. |
We caution you that the foregoing list does not contain all of the forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. We have based the forward-looking statements contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q primarily on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition, operating results, and prospects. The outcome of the events described in these forward-looking statements is subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors described in the sections titled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all risks and uncertainties that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. We cannot assure you that the results, events, and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur, and actual results, events, or circumstances could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions, or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements do not reflect the potential impact of any future acquisitions, mergers, dispositions, joint ventures, or investments we may make.
2
PART I. FINANCIAL INFORMATION
Item 1. Financial Statements
NEW RELIC, INC.
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS
(In thousands, except par value)
(Unaudited)
December 31, | March 31, | ||||||
2017 | 2017 | ||||||
Assets | |||||||
Current assets: | |||||||
Cash and cash equivalents | $ | 125,237 | $ | 88,305 | |||
Short-term investments | 107,799 | 118,101 | |||||
Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $1,075 and $1,117, respectively | 52,676 | 62,032 | |||||
Prepaid expenses and other current assets | 9,431 | 8,169 | |||||
Total current assets | 295,143 | 276,607 | |||||
Property and equipment, net | 52,572 | 50,728 | |||||
Restricted cash | 8,202 | 8,115 | |||||
Goodwill | 11,828 | 11,828 | |||||
Intangible assets, net | 1,508 | 2,499 | |||||
Other assets | 5,740 | 2,492 | |||||
Total assets | $ | 374,993 | $ | 352,269 | |||
Liabilities and stockholders’ equity | |||||||
Current liabilities: | |||||||
Accounts payable | $ | 3,737 | $ | 6,522 | |||
Accrued compensation and benefits | 18,092 | 15,935 | |||||
Other current liabilities | 6,904 | 7,607 | |||||
Deferred revenue | 134,889 | 125,269 | |||||
Total current liabilities | 163,622 | 155,333 | |||||
Deferred rent, non-current | 8,159 | 8,272 | |||||
Deferred revenue, non-current | 453 | 1,135 | |||||
Other liabilities, non-current | 709 | 685 | |||||
Total liabilities | 172,943 | 165,425 | |||||
Commitments and contingencies (Note 5) | |||||||
Stockholders’ equity: | |||||||
Common stock, $0.001 par value; 100,000 shares authorized at December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017; 55,657 shares and 53,539 shares issued at December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017, respectively; and 55,397 shares and 53,279 shares outstanding at December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017, respectively | 56 | 53 | |||||
Treasury stock - at cost (260 shares) | (263 | ) | (263 | ) | |||
Additional paid-in capital | 501,004 | 447,314 | |||||
Accumulated other comprehensive loss | (229 | ) | (96 | ) | |||
Accumulated deficit | (298,518 | ) | (260,164 | ) | |||
Total stockholders’ equity | 202,050 | 186,844 | |||||
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity | $ | 374,993 | $ | 352,269 |
See notes to condensed consolidated financial statements.
3
NEW RELIC, INC.
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS
(In thousands, except per share data)
(Unaudited)
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
Revenue | $ | 91,827 | $ | 68,096 | $ | 256,610 | $ | 190,143 | |||||||
Cost of revenue | 15,671 | 12,627 | 46,342 | 36,060 | |||||||||||
Gross profit | 76,156 | 55,469 | 210,268 | 154,083 | |||||||||||
Operating expenses: | |||||||||||||||
Research and development | 18,154 | 14,377 | 54,686 | 45,087 | |||||||||||
Sales and marketing | 51,393 | 43,458 | 152,015 | 122,626 | |||||||||||
General and administrative | 14,596 | 11,578 | 42,843 | 32,647 | |||||||||||
Total operating expenses | 84,143 | 69,413 | 249,544 | 200,360 | |||||||||||
Loss from operations | (7,987 | ) | (13,944 | ) | (39,276 | ) | (46,277 | ) | |||||||
Other income (expense): | |||||||||||||||
Interest income | 534 | 325 | 1,503 | 796 | |||||||||||
Interest expense | (21 | ) | (21 | ) | (64 | ) | (63 | ) | |||||||
Other income (expense), net | (45 | ) | (280 | ) | 117 | (517 | ) | ||||||||
Loss before income taxes | (7,519 | ) | (13,920 | ) | (37,720 | ) | (46,061 | ) | |||||||
Income tax provision (benefit) | 210 | (37 | ) | 634 | 23 | ||||||||||
Net loss | $ | (7,729 | ) | $ | (13,883 | ) | $ | (38,354 | ) | $ | (46,084 | ) | |||
Net loss per share, basic and diluted | $ | (0.14 | ) | $ | (0.27 | ) | $ | (0.70 | ) | $ | (0.90 | ) | |||
Weighted-average shares used to compute net loss per share, basic and diluted | 55,196 | 52,328 | 54,534 | 51,297 |
See notes to condensed consolidated financial statements.
4
NEW RELIC, INC.
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS
(In thousands)
(Unaudited)
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
Net loss | $ | (7,729 | ) | $ | (13,883 | ) | $ | (38,354 | ) | $ | (46,084 | ) | |||
Other comprehensive loss: | |||||||||||||||
Unrealized loss on available-for-sale securities, net of tax | (135 | ) | (86 | ) | (133 | ) | (87 | ) | |||||||
Comprehensive loss | $ | (7,864 | ) | $ | (13,969 | ) | $ | (38,487 | ) | $ | (46,171 | ) |
See notes to condensed consolidated financial statements.
5
NEW RELIC, INC.
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS
(In thousands)
(Unaudited)
Nine Months Ended December 31, | |||||||
2017 | 2016 | ||||||
Cash flows from operating activities: | |||||||
Net loss: | $ | (38,354 | ) | $ | (46,084 | ) | |
Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by operating activities: | |||||||
Depreciation and amortization | 17,306 | 13,356 | |||||
Stock-based compensation expense | 29,778 | 23,719 | |||||
Other | 498 | 822 | |||||
Changes in operating assets and liabilities: | |||||||
Accounts receivable | 9,223 | (6,478 | ) | ||||
Prepaid expenses and other assets | (4,438 | ) | (1,651 | ) | |||
Accounts payable | (829 | ) | 1,125 | ||||
Accrued compensation and benefits and other liabilities | 2,475 | 3,307 | |||||
Deferred revenue | 8,938 | 18,169 | |||||
Deferred rent | (504 | ) | 3,052 | ||||
Net cash provided by operating activities | 24,093 | 9,337 | |||||
Cash flows from investing activities: | |||||||
Purchases of property and equipment | (17,577 | ) | (16,601 | ) | |||
Increase in restricted cash | (87 | ) | — | ||||
Purchases of short-term investments | (78,074 | ) | (116,285 | ) | |||
Proceeds from sale and maturity of short-term investments | 88,232 | 126,113 | |||||
Capitalized software development costs | (3,054 | ) | (3,075 | ) | |||
Net cash used in investing activities | (10,560 | ) | (9,848 | ) | |||
Cash flows from financing activities: | |||||||
Proceeds from employee stock purchase plan | 3,029 | 2,504 | |||||
Proceeds from exercise of employee stock options | 20,370 | 12,263 | |||||
Net cash provided by financing activities | 23,399 | 14,767 | |||||
Net increase in cash and cash equivalents | 36,932 | 14,256 | |||||
Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period | 88,305 | 65,914 | |||||
Cash and cash equivalents, end of period | $ | 125,237 | $ | 80,170 | |||
Supplemental disclosure of cash flow information: | |||||||
Cash paid for interest and income taxes | $ | 358 | $ | 226 | |||
Noncash investing and financing activities: | |||||||
Property and equipment purchased but not yet paid | $ | 256 | $ | 2,534 |
See notes to condensed consolidated financial statements.
6
NOTES TO CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
(Unaudited)
1.Description of Business and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies
Description of Business—New Relic, Inc. (the “Company” or “New Relic”) was founded in 2007 and incorporated in Delaware on February 20, 2008. The Company is a software-as-a-service provider of digital intelligence products that allow users to monitor software and infrastructure performance and measure end-user activities across desktop and mobile devices with applications deployed in the cloud or in a data center. New Relic’s digital intelligence products and platform capabilities enable software developers, IT operations, and business users to better understand their digital business.
Basis of Presentation—These unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with United States generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) and applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) regarding interim financial reporting. Certain information and note disclosures normally included in the financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP have been condensed or omitted pursuant to such rules and regulations. Therefore, these condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes included in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017, as filed with the SEC on May 18, 2017 (the “Annual Report”). There have been no changes to the Company’s significant accounting policies described in the Annual Report that have had a material impact on its condensed consolidated financial statements and related notes.
In the opinion of management, the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements reflect all normal recurring adjustments necessary to present fairly the financial position, results of operations, comprehensive loss and cash flows for the interim periods, but are not necessarily indicative of the results of operations to be anticipated for the full fiscal year ending March 31, 2018. The condensed consolidated balance sheet as of March 31, 2017 included herein was derived from the audited financial statements as of that date.
Use of Estimates—The preparation of the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the condensed consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of income and expenses during the reporting period. These estimates are based on information available as of the date of the condensed consolidated financial statements; therefore, actual results could differ from management’s estimates.
Concentration of Risk—There were no customers that represented more than 10% of the Company’s accounts receivable balance as of December 31, 2017. One customer represented 12% of the Company’s accounts receivable balance as of March 31, 2017. There were no customers that individually exceeded 10% of the Company’s revenue during the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017 or 2016.
Short-term Investments—Short-term investments consist of commercial paper, certificates of deposit, U.S. treasury securities, U.S. agency securities, and corporate debt securities and are classified as available-for-sale securities. The Company has classified its investments as current based on the nature of the investments and their availability for use in current operations. Available-for-sale securities are carried at fair value with unrealized gains and losses reported as a component of accumulated other comprehensive income, while realized gains and losses are reported within the statement of operations. The Company reviews its debt securities classified as short-term investments on a regular basis to evaluate whether or not any security has experienced an other-than-temporary decline in fair value. The Company considers factors such as the length of time and extent to which the market value has been less than the cost, the financial position and near-term prospects of the issuer, and the Company’s intent to sell, or whether it is more likely than not the Company will be required to sell the investment before recovery of the investment’s amortized-cost basis. If the Company determines that an other-than-temporary decline exists in one of these securities, the respective investment would be written down to fair value. For debt securities, the portion of the write-down related to credit loss would be recognized as other income, net in the condensed consolidated statement of operations. Any portion not related to credit loss would be included in accumulated other comprehensive income (loss). The Company did not identify any investments as other-than-temporarily impaired as of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017.
Business Combinations—The Company recognizes identifiable assets acquired and liabilities assumed at their acquisition date fair value. Goodwill as of the acquisition date is measured as the excess of consideration transferred over the net of the acquisition date fair values of the assets acquired and the liabilities assumed. While the Company uses its best estimates and assumptions as a part of the purchase price allocation process to accurately value assets acquired and liabilities assumed at the acquisition date, its estimates are inherently uncertain and subject to refinement. As a result, during the
7
measurement period, which may be up to one year from the acquisition date, the Company records adjustments to the assets acquired and liabilities assumed, with the corresponding offset to goodwill to the extent that the Company identifies adjustments to the preliminary purchase price allocation. Upon the conclusion of the measurement period or final determination of the values of assets acquired or liabilities assumed, whichever comes first, any subsequent adjustments are recorded to the Company’s condensed consolidated statements of operations. There has been no such adjustment as of December 31, 2017.
Goodwill—Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price of an acquired business over the fair value of the underlying net tangible and intangible assets. Goodwill is evaluated for impairment annually in the third quarter of the Company’s fiscal year, and whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value of goodwill may not be recoverable. Triggering events that may indicate impairment include, but are not limited to, a significant adverse change in customer demand or business climate that could affect the value of goodwill or a significant decrease in expected cash flows. Since inception through December 31, 2017, the Company has not had any goodwill impairment.
Intangible Assets—Intangible assets consist of identifiable intangible assets, primarily developed technology, resulting from the Company’s acquisitions. Acquired intangible assets are recorded at cost, net of accumulated amortization. Intangible assets are amortized on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful lives.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements—In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued ASU 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606). The new guidance provides principles for recognizing revenue to which an entity expects to be entitled for the transfer of promised goods or services to customers. The new guidance will be effective for the Company in its fiscal year beginning April 1, 2018. The guidance may be applied retrospectively to each prior period presented (full retrospective method), or with the cumulative effect recognized as of the date of initial adoption (modified retrospective method). The Company currently intends to adopt Topic 606 using the modified retrospective approach in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019. As the Company continues to assess the new standard along with industry trends and internal progress, the Company may adjust its implementation plan accordingly.
The Company anticipates that the significant impacts of adopting Topic 606 will include the deferral of incremental commission costs of obtaining contracts and additional disclosure requirements. Currently, the Company records commissions as sales and marketing expenses as incurred. Under the new standard, the Company will capitalize incremental commissions related to initial contracts over the expected period of benefit. The Company has not yet concluded the amortization period of these capitalized costs, which will affect the classification and magnitude of the deferred costs at each reporting period. The Company will continue to quantify the effects of adopting Topic 606 on its condensed consolidated financial statements, including the impact on its revenue as well as the changes discussed above.
In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), which requires lessees to put most leases on their balance sheets but recognize the expenses on their income statements in a manner similar to current practice. ASU 2016-02 states that a lessee would recognize a lease liability for the obligation to make lease payments and a right-to-use asset for the right to use the underlying asset for the lease term. The new standard will be effective for the Company in the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2019; early adoption is permitted. The amendments require a modified retrospective approach with optional practical expedients. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of this standard on its condensed consolidated financial statements.
In March 2016, the FASB Issued ASU No. 2016-09, Compensation-Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting. The updated guidance changes how companies account for certain aspects of share-based payment awards to employees, including the accounting for income taxes, forfeitures, and statutory tax withholding requirements, as well as classification in the statement of cash flows. The Company adopted this standard in the first quarter of fiscal year 2018. Upon adoption, the Company recognized all of the previously unrecognized excess tax benefits related to stock awards using the modified retrospective transition method. These excess tax benefits, recognized upon adoption, were recorded as a deferred tax asset, which was then fully offset by the U.S. federal and state deferred tax asset valuation allowance resulting in no impact to the accumulated deficit. Without the valuation allowance, the Company’s deferred tax asset would have increased by $39.5 million. All future excess tax benefits resulting from the settlement of stock awards will be recorded to the income tax provision.
In June 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-13, Financial Instruments—Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments, which amends guidance on reporting credit losses for assets held at amortized cost basis and available-for-sale debt securities. The updated guidance requires that credit losses on available-for-sale debt securities be presented as an allowance rather than as a write-down. The measurement of credit losses for newly recognized financial assets and subsequent changes in the allowance for credit losses are recorded in the statement of income. The update to the standard will be effective for the Company in the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2020; early adoption is permitted in the fiscal
8
year beginning April 1, 2019. The Company is currently evaluating the effect the standard will have on its condensed consolidated financial statements.
In May 2017, the FASB issued ASU 2017-09, Compensation—Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Scope of Modification Accounting, which amends the scope of modification accounting for share-based payment arrangements. The ASU provides guidance on the types of changes to the terms or conditions of share-based payment awards to which an entity would be required to apply modification accounting. The new guidance will be effective for the Company in its fiscal year beginning April 1, 2018. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of this standard on its condensed consolidated financial statements.
2. Fair Value Measurements
The following tables present information about the Company’s financial assets measured at fair value on a recurring basis as of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017 based on the three-tier fair value hierarchy (in thousands):
Fair Value Measurements as of December 31, 2017 | |||||||||||||||
Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Total | ||||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents: | |||||||||||||||
Money market funds | $ | 42,280 | $ | — | $ | — | $ | 42,280 | |||||||
Commercial paper | — | 6,486 | — | 6,486 | |||||||||||
U.S. treasury securities | 2,997 | — | — | 2,997 | |||||||||||
U.S. government agencies | — | 3,925 | — | 3,925 | |||||||||||
Short-term investments: | |||||||||||||||
Certificates of deposit | — | 25,601 | — | 25,601 | |||||||||||
Commercial paper | — | 12,648 | — | 12,648 | |||||||||||
Corporate notes and bonds | — | 15,837 | — | 15,837 | |||||||||||
U.S. treasury securities | 18,937 | — | — | 18,937 | |||||||||||
U.S. government agencies | — | 34,776 | — | 34,776 | |||||||||||
Restricted cash: | |||||||||||||||
Money market funds | 8,202 | — | — | 8,202 | |||||||||||
Total | $ | 72,416 | $ | 99,273 | $ | — | $ | 171,689 | |||||||
Included in cash and cash equivalents | $ | 55,688 | |||||||||||||
Included in short-term investments | $ | 107,799 | |||||||||||||
Included in restricted cash | $ | 8,202 | |||||||||||||
Fair Value Measurements as of March 31, 2017 | |||||||||||||||
Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Total | ||||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents: | |||||||||||||||
Money market funds | $ | 36,180 | $ | — | $ | — | $ | 36,180 | |||||||
Commercial paper | — | 5,441 | — | 5,441 | |||||||||||
U.S. government agencies | — | 2,600 | — | 2,600 | |||||||||||
Short-term investments: | |||||||||||||||
Certificates of deposit | — | 28,210 | — | 28,210 | |||||||||||
Commercial paper | — | 10,549 | — | 10,549 | |||||||||||
Corporate notes and bonds | — | 17,378 | — | 17,378 | |||||||||||
U.S. treasury securities | 11,276 | — | — | 11,276 | |||||||||||
U.S. government agencies | — | 50,688 | — | 50,688 | |||||||||||
Restricted cash: | |||||||||||||||
Money market funds | 8,115 | — | — | 8,115 | |||||||||||
Total | $ | 55,571 | $ | 114,866 | $ | — | $ | 170,437 | |||||||
Included in cash and cash equivalents | $ | 44,221 | |||||||||||||
Included in short-term investments | $ | 118,101 | |||||||||||||
Included in restricted cash | $ | 8,115 |
9
There were no transfers between fair value measurement levels during the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016.
Gross unrealized gains or losses for cash equivalents and short-term investments as of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017 were not significant. As of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017, there were no securities that were in an unrealized loss position for more than 12 months.
The following table classifies the Company’s available-for-sale short-term investments by contractual maturities as of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017 (in thousands):
December 31, 2017 | March 31, 2017 | ||||||
Due within one year | $ | 92,163 | $ | 92,874 | |||
Due in one to two years | 15,636 | 25,227 | |||||
Total | $ | 107,799 | $ | 118,101 |
For certain other financial instruments, including accounts receivable, accounts payable and other current liabilities, the carrying amounts approximate their fair value due to the relatively short maturity of these balances.
3. Property and Equipment
Property and equipment, net, consisted of the following (in thousands):
December 31, 2017 | March 31, 2017 | ||||||
Computers, software, and equipment | $ | 8,023 | $ | 7,060 | |||
Site operation equipment | 36,396 | 25,874 | |||||
Furniture and fixtures | 2,375 | 1,770 | |||||
Leasehold improvements | 31,943 | 30,586 | |||||
Capitalized software development costs | 36,199 | 32,618 | |||||
Total property and equipment | 114,936 | 97,908 | |||||
Less: accumulated depreciation and amortization | (62,364 | ) | (47,180 | ) | |||
Total property and equipment, net | $ | 52,572 | $ | 50,728 |
Depreciation and amortization expense related to property and equipment was $5.5 million and $4.6 million for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and $16.3 million and $12.6 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.
4. Goodwill and Purchased Intangibles Assets
There were no changes to the carrying amount of goodwill for the nine months ended December 31, 2017.
Purchased intangible assets subject to amortization as of December 31, 2017 consist of the following (in thousands):
Gross Carrying Amount | Accumulated Amortization | Net Carrying Amount | |||||||||
Developed technology | $ | 4,900 | $ | (3,392 | ) | $ | 1,508 |
Purchased intangible assets subject to amortization as of March 31, 2017 consist of the following (in thousands):
Gross Carrying Amount | Accumulated Amortization | Net Carrying Amount | |||||||||
Developed technology | $ | 4,900 | $ | (2,401 | ) | $ | 2,499 |
Amortization expense of purchased intangible assets was $0.2 million and $0.2 million for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and $1.0 million and $0.7 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.
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Estimated future amortization expense as of December 31, 2017 is as follows (in thousands):
Fiscal Years Ending March 31, | Estimated Future Amortization Expense | ||
2018 (remaining 3 months) | $ | 196 | |
2019 | 787 | ||
2020 | 525 | ||
$ | 1,508 |
5. Commitments and Contingencies
Leases—The Company leases office space under non-cancelable operating lease agreements, which expire from 2018 through 2027.
On November 1, 2017, the Company entered into a lease amendment (the “Amendment”) with 188 Spear Street LLC, the landlord of the building which is located at 188 Spear Street, San Francisco, California, to early renew and extend the term of its current operating lease through July 2027. The landlord has agreed to provide the Company with a construction allowance of approximately $2.6 million.
Deferred Rent—Certain of the Company’s operating leases contain rent holidays, allowances, and rent escalation provisions. For these leases, the Company recognizes the related rental expense on a straight-line basis over the life of the lease from the date the Company takes possession of the office and records the difference between amounts charged to operations and amounts paid as deferred rent. These rent holidays, allowances, and rent escalations are considered in determining the straight-line expense to be recorded over the lease term. As of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017, $8.9 million and $9.2 million was recorded as deferred rent, respectively.
Rent expense, net of sublease income, for operating leases was $3.1 million and $2.4 million for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and $8.4 million and $7.3 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.
Future minimum lease payments under non-cancelable operating leases as of December 31, 2017 were as follows (in thousands):
Fiscal Years Ending March 31, | Operating Leases | ||
2018 (remaining 3 months) | $ | 3,357 | |
2019 | 13,088 | ||
2020 | 14,339 | ||
2021 | 14,601 | ||
2022 | 14,739 | ||
Thereafter | 59,507 | ||
Total minimum future lease payments | $ | 119,631 |
Purchase Commitments—As of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017, the Company had purchase commitments of $24.7 million and $29.9 million, respectively, primarily related to hosting services.
Legal Proceedings—From time to time, the Company may become involved in various legal proceedings in the ordinary course of its business, and may be subject to third-party infringement claims.
On November 5, 2012, CA, Inc. filed suit against the Company in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York for alleged patent infringement. CA, Inc.’s complaint against the Company claims that certain aspects of the Company’s products infringe certain patents held by CA, Inc. Discovery is complete in the case, and the court has ruled on summary judgment motions filed by both parties. A trial date has not been set as of December 31, 2017. The Company cannot at this time predict the likely outcome of this proceeding or estimate the amount or range of loss or possible loss that may arise from it. The Company has not accrued any loss related to the outcome of this case as of December 31, 2017.
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In the normal course of business, the Company may agree to indemnify third parties with whom it enters into contractual relationships, including customers, lessors, and parties to other transactions with the Company, with respect to certain matters. The Company has agreed, under certain conditions, to hold these third parties harmless against specified losses, such as those arising from a breach of representations or covenants, other third-party claims that the Company’s products when used for their intended purposes infringe the intellectual property rights of such other third parties, or other claims made against certain parties. To date, the Company has not incurred any costs as a result of such obligations and has not accrued any liabilities related to such obligations in the condensed consolidated financial statements. In addition, the Company indemnifies its officers, directors, and certain key employees while they are serving in good faith in their respective capacities. The Company does not currently believe there is a reasonable possibility that a loss may have been incurred under these indemnification obligations. To date, there have been no claims under any such indemnification provisions.
6. Common Stock and Stockholders’ Equity
Employee Stock Purchase Plan—The Company’s board of directors adopted, and the Company’s stockholders approved, the Company’s 2014 Employee Stock Purchase Plan (the “ESPP”), which became effective in December 2014. The ESPP initially reserved and authorized the issuance of up to 1,000,000 shares of common stock. The ESPP provides that the number of shares reserved and available for issuance under the ESPP automatically increases each April, beginning on April 1, 2015, by the lesser of 500,000 shares, 1% of the number of the Company’s common stock shares issued and outstanding on the immediately preceding March 31, or such lesser number of shares as determined by the Company’s board of directors. For each of the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017, 101,493 shares of common stock were purchased under the ESPP. For each of the three and nine months ended December 31, 2016, 118,658 shares of common stock were purchased under the ESPP. Stock-based compensation expense recognized related to the ESPP was $0.6 million and $0.5 million for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and $1.6 million and $1.4 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. As of December 31, 2017, there were 2,046,251 shares available for issuance under the ESPP.
2008 Equity Incentive Plan—The Company’s board of directors adopted, and the Company’s stockholders approved, the 2008 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2008 Plan”) in February 2008. The 2008 Plan was terminated in connection with the Company’s initial public offering (“IPO”), and accordingly, no shares are available for future issuance under this plan. The 2008 Plan continues to govern outstanding awards granted thereunder.
2014 Equity Incentive Plan—The Company’s board of directors adopted, and the Company’s stockholders approved, the Company’s 2014 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2014 Plan”), which became effective in December 2014. The 2014 Plan serves as the successor to the Company’s 2008 Plan. The 2014 Plan initially reserved and authorized the issuance of 5,000,000 shares of the Company’s common stock. Additionally, shares not issued or subject to outstanding grants under the 2008 Plan upon its termination became available under the 2014 Plan, resulting in a total of 5,184,878 available shares under the 2014 Plan as of the effective date of the 2014 Plan. Pursuant to the terms of the 2014 Plan, any shares subject to outstanding stock options or other stock awards under the 2008 Plan that (i) expire or terminate for any reason prior to exercise or settlement, (ii) are forfeited because of the failure to meet a contingency or condition required to vest such shares or otherwise return to the Company or (iii) are reacquired, withheld (or not issued) to satisfy a tax withholding obligation in connection with an award or to satisfy the purchase price or exercise price of a stock award will become available for issuance pursuant to awards granted under the 2014 Plan. The 2014 Plan provides that the number of shares reserved and available for issuance under the plan automatically increases each April 1, beginning on April 1, 2015, by 5% of the outstanding number of shares of the Company’s common stock shares issued and outstanding on the immediately preceding March 31, or such lesser number of shares as determined by the Company’s board of directors. As of December 31, 2017, there were 9,821,601 shares available for issuance under the 2014 Plan.
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The following table summarizes the Company’s stock option and RSU award activities for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 (in thousands, except per share information):
Options Outstanding | RSUs Outstanding | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Number of Shares | Weighted- Average Exercise Price | Weighted- Average Remaining Contractual Term (in years) | Aggregate Intrinsic Value | Number of Shares | Weighted- Average Grant Date Fair Value | Weighted- Average Remaining Contractual Term (in years) | Aggregate Intrinsic Value | ||||||||||||||||||
Outstanding - April 1, 2017 | 4,607 | $ | 17.49 | 7.1 | $ | 90,339 | 1,978 | $ | 29.32 | 2.8 | $ | 73,309 | |||||||||||||
Stock options granted | 475 | 45.27 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
RSUs granted | 1,001 | 45.59 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Stock options exercised | (1,386 | ) | 14.67 | 42,151 | |||||||||||||||||||||
RSUs vested | (587 | ) | 30.89 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Stock options canceled/forfeited | (246 | ) | 26.20 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
RSUs canceled/forfeited | (354 | ) | 32.02 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Outstanding - December 31, 2017 | 3,450 | $ | 21.83 | 6.8 | $ | 124,015 | 2,038 | $ | 36.40 | 2.7 | $ | 117,718 |
Stock-Based Compensation Expense—Aggregate stock-based compensation expense for employees and nonemployees was $9.9 million and $8.1 million for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and $29.8 million and $23.7 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. Cost of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses were as follows (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
Cost of revenue | $ | 587 | $ | 475 | $ | 1,716 | $ | 1,369 | |||||||
Research and development | 2,959 | 2,390 | 9,100 | 7,453 | |||||||||||
Sales and marketing | 3,933 | 3,479 | 12,114 | 9,650 | |||||||||||
General and administrative | 2,454 | 1,774 | 6,848 | 5,247 | |||||||||||
Total stock-based compensation expense | $ | 9,933 | $ | 8,118 | $ | 29,778 | $ | 23,719 |
As of December 31, 2017, unrecognized stock-based compensation cost related to outstanding unvested stock options was $16.8 million, which is expected to be recognized over a weighted-average period of approximately 2.0 years. As of December 31, 2017, unrecognized stock-based compensation cost related to outstanding unvested stock units was $67.9 million, which is expected to be recognized over a weighted-average period of approximately 2.7 years.
7. Income Taxes
The Company is subject to income tax in the United States as well as other tax jurisdictions in which it conducts business. Earnings from non-U.S. activities are subject to local country income tax. The Company does not provide for federal income taxes on the undistributed earnings of its foreign subsidiaries as such earnings are expected to be reinvested indefinitely.
The Company recorded an income tax provision of $0.2 million and an income tax benefit of $37,000 for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and an income tax provision of $0.6 million and $23,000 for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, related to foreign income taxes and state minimum taxes. Based on the available objective evidence during the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017, the Company believes it is more likely than not that the tax benefits of the U.S. losses incurred during the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017 may not be realized. Accordingly, the Company did not record the tax benefits of U.S. losses incurred during the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017. The primary difference between the effective tax rate and the local statutory tax rate relates to the valuation allowance on the Company’s U.S. losses, foreign tax rate differences, and amortization of a deferred charge associated with the intercompany transfer of intellectual property from prior periods.
On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “TCJA”) was signed into federal law, which among other changes reduces the federal corporate tax rate to 21%. The Company does not expect the TCJA to have a material impact on its condensed consolidated financial statements due to its valuation allowance in the U.S., which nets deferred tax balances to zero. Based on the Company’s analysis, deferred tax assets have been revalued from 34% to 21% with a corresponding offset to the valuation allowance and any other potential taxes arising due to the TCJA will result in reductions to its net operating loss
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and valuation allowance. The Company will continue to analyze the TCJA to assess the full effects on the Company’s financial results, including disclosures, for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2018.
8. Net Loss Per Share
Basic net loss per share is calculated by dividing net loss by the weighted-average number of common shares outstanding during the period, less shares subject to repurchase, and excludes any dilutive effects of employee share-based awards and warrants. Diluted net loss per share is computed giving effect to all potential dilutive common shares, including common stock issuable upon exercise of stock options and unvested restricted common stock. As the Company had net losses for each of the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, all potential common shares were determined to be anti-dilutive, resulting in basic and diluted net loss per share being equal.
The following table sets forth the computation of net loss per share, basic and diluted (in thousands, except per share amounts):
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
Numerator: | |||||||||||||||
Net loss | $ | (7,729 | ) | $ | (13,883 | ) | $ | (38,354 | ) | $ | (46,084 | ) | |||
Denominator: | |||||||||||||||
Weighted average shares used to compute net loss per share, basic and diluted | 55,196 | 52,328 | 54,534 | 51,297 | |||||||||||
Net loss per share—basic and diluted | $ | (0.14 | ) | $ | (0.27 | ) | $ | (0.70 | ) | $ | (0.90 | ) |
The following outstanding options, unvested shares, and ESPP shares were excluded (as common stock equivalents) from the computation of diluted net loss per common share for the periods presented as their effect would have been antidilutive (in thousands):
As of December 31, | |||||
2017 | 2016 | ||||
Options to purchase common stock | 3,450 | 4,931 | |||
Restricted stock units | 2,038 | 2,080 | |||
ESPP shares | 99 | 104 | |||
Common stock reserved for issuance in connection with acquisition | — | 43 | |||
5,587 | 7,158 |
9. Revenue by Geographic Location
The following table shows the Company’s revenue by geographic areas, as determined based on the billing address of its customers (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
United States | $ | 62,966 | $ | 46,084 | $ | 175,765 | $ | 128,806 | |||||||
EMEA | 16,732 | 13,036 | 47,225 | 36,043 | |||||||||||
APAC | 6,918 | 5,080 | 19,025 | 14,443 | |||||||||||
Other | 5,211 | 3,896 | 14,595 | 10,851 | |||||||||||
Total revenue | $ | 91,827 | $ | 68,096 | $ | 256,610 | $ | 190,143 |
Substantially all of the Company’s long-lived assets were attributable to operations in the United States as of December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2017.
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Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our condensed consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. The following discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. When reviewing the discussion below, you should keep in mind the substantial risks and uncertainties that could impact our business. In particular, we encourage you to review the risks and uncertainties described in Part II, Item 1A “Risk Factors” included elsewhere in this report. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements contained in this report or implied by past results and trends. Forward-looking statements are statements that attempt to forecast or anticipate future developments in our business, financial condition or results of operations. See the section titled “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” in this report. These statements, like all statements in this report, speak only as of their date (unless another date is indicated), and we undertake no obligation to update or revise these statements in light of future developments, except as required by law.
Overview
We help companies see their digital business more clearly. Our cloud-based platform and suite of products, which we call the New Relic Digital Intelligence Platform, enables organizations to collect, store, and analyze massive amounts of data in real time so they can better understand their application and infrastructure performance, improve their digital customer experience, and achieve business success. We design all our products to be highly intuitive and frictionless; they are easy to deploy, and customers can rapidly, often within minutes, realize benefits and results. Software developers can build better applications faster, as they can see how their software will perform and is actually performing for end-users. IT operations teams can use our products to quickly find and fix performance problems as well as prevent future issues. Business users such as product managers can get answers to how their new product launch is being received, or how a pricing change impacted customer retention, without waiting for help from IT. For each of these audiences—software developers, IT operations, and business users—we aim to be the first, best place to look to understand their digital business.
We were founded in 2007 and we launched our first product offering, New Relic APM (Application Performance Management), in 2008. Since then, we have broadened our product offerings to support a wide variety of programming languages and frameworks and have added a number of additional products and platform capabilities that now form the New Relic Digital Intelligence Platform. For example, in 2013, we released New Relic Mobile to support mobile by providing native mobile application performance management for the iOS and Android mobile operating systems; in 2014, we released New Relic Browser to improve browser-side performance, New Relic Synthetics to enable our users to test their software through simulated usage and New Relic Insights to leverage big data analytics; and in 2016, we released New Relic Infrastructure to provide real-time visibility into critical configuration changes that affect a company’s cloud infrastructure.
We sell our products primarily through direct sales and marketing channels utilizing a wide range of online and offline sales and marketing activities. The majority of our users visit our website, create an account, and deploy our software. Many users initially subscribe to one of our products to address a particular use case and broaden the usage of our products as they become more familiar with our products. For larger mid-market and enterprise organizations, our sales team focuses on leveraging users in existing accounts to expand our product users and usage across the organization. Although enterprise organizations constitute a minority of our total paid business accounts, we anticipate that the revenue we receive from enterprise paid business accounts will over time provide a significant majority of our overall revenue.
We offer access to the New Relic Digital Intelligence Platform under subscription plans that also include service and support. Our plans typically have terms of one year, although some of our customers commit for shorter or longer periods. We recognize revenue from subscription fees ratably over the service period. Historically, most of our customers have paid us on a monthly basis. As a result, our deferred revenue at any given period of time has been relatively low. In recent periods we have secured an increased percentage of multi-year commitments, which has grown as we have sold more to larger organizations. Because we generally invoice many of these larger organizations less frequently, our deferred revenue has increased over time, and we expect it to continue to increase on a year-over-year basis. However, due to our mix of subscription plans and billing frequencies, we do not believe that changes in our deferred revenue in a given period are directly correlated with our revenue growth.
We have grown rapidly in recent periods, with revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016 of $91.8 million and $68.1 million, respectively, representing year-over-year growth of 35%. For the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, our revenue was $256.6 million and $190.1 million, respectively, representing year-over-year growth of 35%. We expect that the rate of growth in our revenue will decline over the long term as our business scales, even if our revenue continues to grow in absolute terms. We have continued to make significant expenditures and investments,
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including in personnel-related costs, sales and marketing, infrastructure and operations, and have incurred net losses in each period since our inception, including net losses of $7.7 million and $13.9 million for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and $38.4 million and $46.1 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. Our accumulated deficit as of December 31, 2017 was $298.5 million.
Internationally, we currently offer our products in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, or EMEA; Asia-Pacific, or APAC; and other non-U.S. locations, as determined based on the billing address of our customers, and our revenue from those regions constituted 18%, 8%, and 6%, respectively, of our revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2017, and 19%, 7%, and 6%, respectively, of our revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2016. Our revenue from those regions constituted 18%, 7%, and 6%, respectively, of our revenue for the nine months ended December 31, 2017, and 19%, 8%, and 6%, respectively, of our revenue for the nine months ended December 31, 2016. We believe there is further opportunity to increase our international revenue overall and as a proportion of our revenue, and we are increasingly investing in our international operations and intend to invest in further expanding our footprint in international markets.
Our employee headcount has increased to 1,253 employees as of December 31, 2017 from 1,032 employees as of December 31, 2016 and we plan to continue to invest aggressively in the growth of our business to take advantage of our market opportunity. For example, we intend to continue to increase our investment in sales and marketing, including further expanding our sales teams, increasing our marketing activities, and growing our international operations, particularly as we increase our sales to larger organizations. In addition, we plan to continue to invest in research and development to enhance and further develop our products and platform capabilities.
While these areas represent significant opportunities for us, we also face significant risks and challenges that we must successfully address in order to sustain the growth of our business and improve our operating results. We are continuing to incur expenses in the near term as we continue to invest in the growth of our sales and expansion of paid business accounts. However, we may not realize any long-term benefit from these investments in the growth of our business. In addition, any investments that we make in sales and marketing or other areas will occur in advance of our experiencing any benefits from such investments, so it may be difficult for us to determine if we are efficiently allocating our resources in these areas. As a result, we have never achieved profitability and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. Further, our reported revenue, operating results, and cash flows for a given period may not be indicative of future results due to our limited operating history and fluctuations in the number of new employees, the rate of our expansion, the timing of expenses we incur to grow our business and operations, levels of competition, and market demand for our products.
Factors Affecting Our Performance
Market Adoption of Our Products. We are defining a new category of software, which we refer to as digital intelligence. Our success is dependent on the market adoption of this emerging category of software, which may not yet be well understood by the market. For the foreseeable future, we expect that our revenue growth will be primarily driven by the pace of adoption and penetration of our products and we will incur significant expenses associated with educating the market about the benefits of our products.
Increasing the Number of Paid Business Accounts. Our future growth is dependent on our ability to increase the number of accounts that pay us to use our products. Many users experience our products with a free trial after which they have the option to purchase one or more of our subscription plans. We believe that we have a significant competitive advantage as our users experience the ease of installation and the full set of features that our products deliver during the free trial period.
Retention and Expansion within Paid Business Accounts. A key factor in our success is the retention and expansion of our subscription agreements with our existing customers. In order for us to continue to grow our business, it is important to generate additional revenue from our existing customers, and we intend to do this in several ways. As we improve our existing products and platform capabilities and introduce new products, we believe that the demand for our products will generally grow. We also believe that there is a significant opportunity for us to increase the number of subscriptions we sell to our current customers as they become more familiar with our products and adopt our products to address additional business use cases.
Investment in Sales and Marketing. We expect to continue to invest aggressively in sales and marketing to drive additional revenue. Any investments that we make in sales and marketing will occur in advance of our experiencing any benefits from such investments, so it may be difficult for us to determine if we are efficiently allocating our resources. As we continue to focus sales and marketing investments more heavily towards large organizations, this may require more of our resources. In addition, we expect our sales cycle to be longer and less predictable with respect to larger customers, which may delay realization of future sales. We also intend to increase our sales and marketing investment in international markets, such as Europe, and those markets may take longer and be more costly to develop than the U.S. market.
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Key Operating Metrics
We review the following key metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate business plans, and make key strategic decisions:
Number of Paid Business Accounts and Number of Paid Business Accounts with Annual Recurring Revenue over $100,000. We believe that our ability to increase our number of paid business accounts is one indicator of our market penetration, the growth of our business and our potential future prospects. We define the number of paid business accounts at the end of any particular period as the number of accounts at the end of the period, as identified by a unique account identifier, for which we have recognized revenue on the last day of the period indicated. A single organization or customer may have multiple paid business accounts for separate divisions, segments, or subsidiaries. We round the number of total paid business accounts that we report as of a particular date down to the nearest hundred. We had over 16,600 paid business accounts as of December 31, 2017, compared to over 14,900 as of December 31, 2016. We expect the rate at which we add paid business accounts to decrease over time as we scale our business, but it may fluctuate from period to period as a result of the introduction of alternative pricing options for our products or other factors.
As a subset of this metric, we believe that our number of paid business accounts with annual recurring revenue over $100,000 is one indicator of our business as it relates to the acquisition of larger accounts within our overall customer base, including our market penetration of larger mid-market and enterprise customers, as well as deeper penetration into our existing customer base. For this purpose, we define annual recurring revenue as the revenue we would contractually expect to receive from those customers over the following 12 months, without any increase or reduction in any of their subscriptions. We had 629 paid business accounts with annual recurring revenue over $100,000 as of December 31, 2017, which was a 31.6% increase compared to 478 as of December 31, 2016. We believe this increase reflects our continued focus of a greater proportion of our sales and marketing efforts on larger mid-market and enterprise customers. As with our total paid business accounts, we expect the rate at which we add paid business accounts with annual recurring revenue over $100,000 to decrease over time as a result of deeper penetration into the enterprise market.
Percentage of Annualized Recurring Revenue from Enterprise Paid Business Accounts. We believe that our ability to increase the percentage of annualized recurring revenue from enterprise paid business accounts relative to our overall business is an important indicator of our success with respect to our focus in recent periods to improve our market penetration with enterprise companies. We define an enterprise paid business account as a paid business account that we measure to have over 1,000 employees. Growth or reduction reflected in this figure would include, in addition to the acquisition, loss or consolidation of enterprise paid business accounts, any changes we make to the categorization of existing paid business accounts, for example to reflect that they have expanded beyond the employee threshold, which we review periodically.
Our percentage of annualized recurring revenue from enterprise paid business accounts was 52% as of December 31, 2017, compared to 44% as of December 31, 2016. We expect the percentage of annualized recurring revenue from enterprise paid business accounts to increase over time. However, because of the size of our large installed base and potential seasonality in regard to selling into enterprise customers, we believe the percentage may not move significantly from quarter to quarter and we expect the rate of increase in the percentage of enterprise paid business accounts to moderate over time.
Annualized Revenue per Average Paid Business Account. We believe that our annualized revenue per average paid business account is another indicator of our business as it relates to the acquisition of larger accounts within our overall customer base, including our market penetration of larger mid-market and enterprise customers, as well as deeper penetration into our existing customer base. We define our annualized revenue per average paid business account as the annualized revenue for the current period divided by the average of the number of paid business accounts at the end of the current period and the end of the prior period. We round down our annualized revenue per average paid business account to the nearest $500.
Our annualized revenue per average paid business account for the quarter ended December 31, 2017 grew to over $22,500, which was an increase of 25.0% compared to over $18,000 for the quarter ended December 31, 2016. We believe this increase reflects our continued focus on larger mid-market and enterprise customers. We have experienced a decrease in the rate of growth of our annualized revenue per average paid business account and we expect the decrease to continue over time as our business scales and we introduce alternative pricing options for our products.
Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate. Our ability to generate revenue is dependent on our ability to maintain and grow our relationships with our existing customers. We track our performance in this area by measuring our dollar-based net expansion rate. Our dollar-based net expansion rate increases when customers increase their use of our products, use additional
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products, or upgrade to a higher subscription tier. Our dollar-based net expansion rate is reduced when customers decrease their use of our products, use fewer products, or downgrade to a lower subscription tier.
Our dollar-based net expansion rate compares our recurring subscription revenue from paid business accounts from one period to the next. We measure our dollar-based net expansion rate on a monthly basis because many of our customers change their subscriptions more frequently than quarterly or annually. To calculate our annual dollar-based net expansion rate, we first establish the base period monthly recurring revenue from all our paid business accounts at the end of a month. This represents the revenue we would contractually expect to receive from those paid business accounts over the following month, without any increase or reduction in any of their subscriptions. We then (i) calculate the actual monthly recurring revenue from those same paid business accounts at the end of that following month; then (ii) divide that following month’s recurring revenue by the base month’s recurring revenue to arrive at our monthly net expansion rate; then (iii) calculate a quarterly net expansion rate by compounding the net expansion rates of the three months in the quarter; and then (iv) calculate our annualized net expansion rate by compounding our quarterly net expansion rate over an annual period.
The quarterly fluctuations in our dollar-based net expansion rate are primarily driven by transactions within a particular quarter in which certain paid business accounts from larger subscription customers either significantly upgrade or significantly downgrade their subscriptions and by increased sales to existing paid business accounts in particular quarters due to sales and marketing campaigns in a particular quarter. In addition, we believe that the composition of our customer base also has an impact on the net expansion rate, such that a relative increase in the number of paid business accounts from larger enterprises versus small to medium-sized organizations will tend to increase our quarterly net expansion rate, while a relative increase in the number or paid business accounts from small to medium-sized organizations versus larger enterprises will tend to decrease the quarterly net expansion rate, as smaller businesses tend to cancel subscriptions more frequently than larger enterprises. This rate is also impacted by factors including, but not limited to, new product introductions, promotional activity, mix of customer size, and the variable timing of renewals.
Our annualized dollar-based net expansion rate increased to 125.2% for the three-month period ended December 31, 2017 from 124.6% for the three-month period ended December 31, 2016. In the three-month period ended December 31, 2017, we saw comparable churn rates relative to the same period in the prior year, but a modestly higher amount of upsell activity relative to our total installed base.
Key Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
We offer access to our products under subscription plans that include service and support for one or more of our products. For our paying customers, we offer a variety of pricing plans based on the particular product purchased by an account, number of servers monitored, number of applications monitored, or number of mobile devices monitored. Our plans typically have terms of one year, although some of our customers commit for shorter or longer periods. Historically, most of our customers have paid us on a monthly basis. As a result, our deferred revenue at any given period of time has been relatively low. As we have increased our sales to larger organizations, we have increasingly been invoicing our customers on a less frequent basis, and therefore, we expect our deferred revenue to continue to increase on a year-over-year basis.
Additionally, we expect our business to continue to become more seasonal as mid-market and enterprise customers start to represent a larger percentage of our revenues. The first two quarters of each fiscal year usually have lower sequential deferred revenue growth than the third and fourth fiscal quarters, during which we generally benefit from a larger renewal pool and opportunity to upsell existing customers. As a result, over time we could potentially see stronger sequential revenue results in our fourth and first fiscal quarters as our deferred revenue is recognized. We expect that this seasonality will continue to affect our sales and operating results in the future, which can make it difficult to achieve sequential growth in certain financial metrics or could result in sequential declines on a quarterly basis.
Cost of Revenue
Cost of revenue consists of expenses relating to data center operations, hosting-related costs, payment processing fees, depreciation and amortization, consulting costs, and salaries and benefits of operations and global customer support personnel. Salaries and benefits costs associated with our operations and global customer support personnel consist of salaries, benefits, bonuses, and stock-based compensation. We plan to continue increasing the capacity, capability, and reliability of our infrastructure to support the growth of our customer adoption and the number of products we offer and therefore expect a corresponding increase in our cost of revenue.
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Gross Profit and Margin
Gross profit is revenue less cost of revenue. Gross margin is gross profit expressed as a percentage of revenue. Our gross margin has been, and will continue to be, affected by a number of factors, including the timing and extent of our investments in our operations and global customer support personnel, hosting-related costs, and the amortization of capitalized software. We expect that our gross margin will decline modestly over the long term, although we expect our gross margin to fluctuate from period to period as a result of these factors.
Operating Expenses
Personnel costs, which consist of salaries, benefits, bonuses, stock-based compensation and, with regard to sales and marketing expenses, sales commissions, are the most significant component of our operating expenses. We also incur other non-personnel costs such as an allocation of our general overhead expenses.
Research and Development. Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel costs and an allocation of our general overhead expenses. We continue to focus our research and development efforts on adding new features and products, and increasing the functionality and enhancing the ease of use of our existing products. We capitalize the portion of our software development costs that meets the criteria for capitalization.
We plan to continue to hire employees for our engineering, product management, and design teams to support our research and development efforts. As a result, we expect our research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future. However, we expect our research and development expenses to decrease modestly as a percentage of our revenue over the long term, although our research and development expenses may fluctuate from period to period depending on fluctuations in our revenue and the timing and extent of our research and development expenses.
Sales and Marketing. Sales and marketing expenses consist of personnel costs for our sales, marketing, and business development employees and executives. Commissions are expensed in the period when a customer contract is executed. Sales and marketing expenses also include the costs of our marketing and brand awareness programs.
We plan to continue investing in sales and marketing globally by increasing the number of our sales personnel, expanding our domestic and international marketing activities, building brand awareness, and sponsoring additional marketing events. We expect our sales and marketing expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars and continue to be our largest operating expense category for the foreseeable future. However, we expect our sales and marketing expenses to decrease as a percentage of our revenue over the long term, although our sales and marketing expenses may fluctuate from period to period depending on fluctuations in our revenue and the timing and extent of our sales and marketing expenses.
General and Administrative. General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel costs for our administrative, legal, human resources, information technology, finance and accounting employees, and executives. Also included are non-personnel costs, such as external legal and other professional fees.
We plan to continue to expand our business both domestically and internationally, and we expect to increase the size of our general and administrative function to support the growth of our business. We also expect that we will continue to incur additional general and administrative expenses as a result of being a publicly traded company. As a result, we expect our general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future. However, we expect our general and administrative expenses to decrease modestly as a percentage of our revenue over the long term, although our general and administrative expense may fluctuate from period to period depending on fluctuations in our revenue and the timing and extent of our general and administrative expenses, such as litigation costs.
Other Income, Net
Other income, net consists primarily of interest income, interest expense, and foreign exchange gains and losses.
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Results of Operations
The following tables summarize our consolidated statements of operations data for the periods presented and as a percentage of our revenue for those periods.
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
(in thousands, except per share data) | |||||||||||||||
Revenue | $ | 91,827 | $ | 68,096 | $ | 256,610 | $ | 190,143 | |||||||
Cost of revenue (1) | 15,671 | 12,627 | 46,342 | 36,060 | |||||||||||
Gross profit | 76,156 | 55,469 | 210,268 | 154,083 | |||||||||||
Operating expenses: | |||||||||||||||
Research and development (1) | 18,154 | 14,377 | 54,686 | 45,087 | |||||||||||
Sales and marketing (1) | 51,393 | 43,458 | 152,015 | 122,626 | |||||||||||
General and administrative (1) | 14,596 | 11,578 | 42,843 | 32,647 | |||||||||||
Total operating expenses | 84,143 | 69,413 | 249,544 | 200,360 | |||||||||||
Loss from operations | (7,987 | ) | (13,944 | ) | (39,276 | ) | (46,277 | ) | |||||||
Other income (expense): | |||||||||||||||
Interest income | 534 | 325 | 1,503 | 796 | |||||||||||
Interest expense | (21 | ) | (21 | ) | (64 | ) | (63 | ) | |||||||
Other income (expense), net | (45 | ) | (280 | ) | 117 | (517 | ) | ||||||||
Loss before income taxes | (7,519 | ) | (13,920 | ) | (37,720 | ) | (46,061 | ) | |||||||
Income tax provision (benefit) | 210 | (37 | ) | 634 | 23 | ||||||||||
Net loss | $ | (7,729 | ) | $ | (13,883 | ) | $ | (38,354 | ) | $ | (46,084 | ) | |||
Net loss per share, basic and diluted | $ | (0.14 | ) | $ | (0.27 | ) | $ | (0.70 | ) | $ | (0.90 | ) | |||
Weighted-average shares used to compute net loss per share, basic and diluted | 55,196 | 52,328 | 54,534 | 51,297 |
(1) | Includes stock-based compensation expense as follows: |
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
(in thousands) | |||||||||||||||
Cost of revenue | $ | 587 | $ | 475 | $ | 1,716 | $ | 1,369 | |||||||
Research and development | 2,959 | 2,390 | 9,100 | 7,453 | |||||||||||
Sales and marketing | 3,933 | 3,479 | 12,114 | 9,650 | |||||||||||
General and administrative | 2,454 | 1,774 | 6,848 | 5,247 | |||||||||||
Total stock-based compensation expense | $ | 9,933 | $ | 8,118 | $ | 29,778 | $ | 23,719 |
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Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||
(as a percentage of revenue) | |||||||||||
Revenue | 100 | % | 100 | % | 100 | % | 100 | % | |||
Cost of revenue (1) | 17 | 19 | 18 | 19 | |||||||
Gross profit | 83 | 81 | 82 | 81 | |||||||
Operating expenses: | |||||||||||
Research and development (1) | 20 | 21 | 22 | 24 | |||||||
Sales and marketing (1) | 56 | 64 | 59 | 64 | |||||||
General and administrative (1) | 16 | 17 | 17 | 17 | |||||||
Total operating expenses | 92 | 102 | 98 | 105 | |||||||
Loss from operations | (9 | ) | (21 | ) | (16 | ) | (24 | ) | |||
Other income (expense): | |||||||||||
Interest income | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | |||||||
Interest expense | — | — | — | — | |||||||
Other income (expense), net | — | — | — | — | |||||||
Loss before income taxes | (8 | ) | (20 | ) | (15 | ) | (24 | ) | |||
Income tax provision (benefit) | — | — | — | — | |||||||
Net loss | (8 | %) | (20 | %) | (15 | %) | (24 | %) |
(1) | Includes stock-based compensation expense as follows: |
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||
(as a percentage of revenue) | |||||||||||
Cost of revenue | 1 | % | 1 | % | 1 | % | 1 | % | |||
Research and development | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | |||||||
Sales and marketing | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | |||||||
General and administrative | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||||
Total stock-based compensation expense | 11 | % | 12 | % | 12 | % | 12 | % |
Revenue
Three Months Ended December 31, | Change | Nine Months Ended December 31, | Change | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | 2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
United States | $ | 62,966 | $ | 46,084 | $ | 16,882 | 37 | % | $ | 175,765 | $ | 128,806 | $ | 46,959 | 36 | % | |||||||||||||
EMEA | 16,732 | 13,036 | 3,696 | 28 | 47,225 | 36,043 | 11,182 | 31 | |||||||||||||||||||||
APAC | 6,918 | 5,080 | 1,838 | 36 | 19,025 | 14,443 | 4,582 | 32 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Other | 5,211 | 3,896 | 1,315 | 34 | 14,595 | 10,851 | 3,744 | 35 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Total revenue | $ | 91,827 | $ | 68,096 | $ | 23,731 | 35 | % | $ | 256,610 | $ | 190,143 | $ | 66,467 | 35 | % |
Revenue increased $23.7 million, or 35%, in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was a result of an increase in the number of paid business accounts and an increase in product adoption by existing paid business accounts. Our revenue from EMEA increased $3.7 million, or 28%, in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016, and our revenue from APAC increased $1.8 million, or 36%, in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016, as a result of an increase in the number of paid business accounts and an increase in product adoption by existing paid business accounts located in these geographic regions.
Revenue increased $66.5 million, or 35%, in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was a result of an increase in the number of paid business accounts and an increase in product adoption
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by existing paid business accounts. Our revenue from EMEA increased $11.2 million, or 31%, in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016, and our revenue from APAC increased $4.6 million, or 32%, in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016, as a result of an increase in the number of paid business accounts and an increase in product adoption by existing paid business accounts located in these geographic regions.
Cost of Revenue
Three Months Ended December 31, | Change | Nine Months Ended December 31, | Change | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | 2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cost of revenue | $ | 15,671 | $ | 12,627 | $ | 3,044 | 24 | % | $ | 46,342 | $ | 36,060 | $ | 10,282 | 29 | % |
Cost of revenue increased $3.0 million, or 24%, in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was primarily a result of an increase in personnel-related costs and hosting-related costs necessary to support our growth, an increase in amortization expense related to capitalized software development costs, and an increase in payment processing costs due to the increase in revenue. Hosting-related costs, depreciation expense, amortization expense, and payment processing fees increased by $1.7 million. Personnel-related costs increased by $1.3 million, driven by higher headcount.
Cost of revenue increased $10.3 million, or 29%, in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was primarily a result of an increase in personnel-related costs and hosting-related costs necessary to support our growth, an increase in amortization expense related to capitalized software development costs, and an increase in payment processing costs due to the increase in revenue. Hosting-related costs, depreciation expense, amortization expense, and payment processing fees increased by $6.3 million. Personnel-related costs increased by $4.0 million, driven by higher headcount.
Research and Development
Three Months Ended December 31, | Change | Nine Months Ended December 31, | Change | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | 2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Research and development | $ | 18,154 | $ | 14,377 | $ | 3,777 | 26 | % | $ | 54,686 | $ | 45,087 | $ | 9,599 | 21 | % |
Research and development expenses increased $3.8 million, or 26%, in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was primarily a result of an increase of $3.3 million in personnel-related costs, driven by higher headcount, $0.4 million increase in hosting costs, and a $0.1 million increase of other miscellaneous expenses.
Research and development expenses increased $9.6 million, or 21%, in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was primarily a result of an increase of $8.4 million in personnel-related costs, driven by higher headcount. The remaining increase was primarily due to a $0.9 million increase in software subscription expenses and a $0.3 million increase in depreciation expense.
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Sales and Marketing
Three Months Ended December 31, | Change | Nine Months Ended December 31, | Change | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | 2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sales and marketing | $ | 51,393 | $ | 43,458 | $ | 7,935 | 18 | % | $ | 152,015 | $ | 122,626 | $ | 29,389 | 24 | % |
Sales and marketing expenses increased $7.9 million, or 18%, in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was primarily a result of an increase in personnel-related costs of $7.8 million, driven by higher headcount, and a $0.1 million increase of other miscellaneous expenses.
Sales and marketing expenses increased $29.4 million, or 24%, in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase was primarily a result of an increase in personnel-related costs of $27.0 million, driven by higher headcount. The remaining increase was primarily due to a $1.6 million increase in travel expenses, and a $0.8 million increase in software subscription expenses.
General and Administrative
Three Months Ended December 31, | Change | Nine Months Ended December 31, | Change | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | 2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
General and administrative | $ | 14,596 | $ | 11,578 | $ | 3,018 | 26 | % | $ | 42,843 | $ | 32,647 | $ | 10,196 | 31 | % |
General and administrative expenses increased $3.0 million, or 26%, in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase in general and administrative expenses was primarily a result of an increase in personnel-related costs of $1.6 million, driven by an increase in headcount. The remaining increase was primarily due to a $0.9 million increase in consultant expenses and a $0.5 million increase in facilities expenses.
General and administrative expenses increased $10.2 million, or 31%, in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The increase in general and administrative expenses was primarily a result of an increase in personnel-related costs of $4.7 million, driven by an increase in headcount. The remaining increase was primarily due to a $3.9 million increase in consultant expenses, a $1.1 million increase in facilities expenses, and a $0.5 million increase in software subscription expenses.
Other Income, Net
Three Months Ended December 31, | Change | Nine Months Ended December 31, | Change | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | 2017 | 2016 | Amount | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other income, net | $ | 468 | $ | 24 | $ | 444 | 1,850 | % | $ | 1,556 | $ | 216 | $ | 1,340 | 620 | % |
Other income, net increased by $0.4 million in the three months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016, and $1.3 million in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. These increases were primarily a result of an increase in interest income.
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Non-GAAP Financial Measures
Non-GAAP Income (Loss) From Operations
To supplement our condensed consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with GAAP, we provide investors with certain non-GAAP financial measures, including non-GAAP income (loss) from operations. We define non-GAAP income (loss) from operations as the respective GAAP balance, adjusted for: (1) stock-based compensation expense, (2) amortization of stock-based compensation capitalized in software development costs, (3) the amortization of purchased intangibles, (4) the transaction costs related to acquisition, (5) lawsuit litigation expense, and (6) employer payroll tax expense on equity incentive plans, as applicable. We use non-GAAP income (loss) from operations internally to understand and compare operating results across accounting periods, for internal budgeting and forecasting purposes, for short- and long-term operating plans, and to evaluate our financial performance. We believe the measure is useful to investors, as a supplement to GAAP measures, in evaluating our operational performance. We have provided below a reconciliation of non-GAAP income (loss) from operations.
We believe non-GAAP income (loss) from operations is useful to investors and others in assessing our operating performance due to the following factors:
Stock-based compensation expense and amortization of stock-based compensation capitalized in software development costs. We utilize share-based compensation to attract and retain employees. It is principally aimed at aligning their interests with those of its stockholders and at long-term retention, rather than to address operational performance for any particular period. As a result, share-based compensation expenses vary for reasons that are generally unrelated to financial and operational performance in any particular period.
The amortization of purchased intangibles and the transaction costs related to acquisition. We view amortization of purchased intangible assets as items arising from pre-acquisition activities determined at the time of an acquisition. While these intangible assets are evaluated for impairment regularly, amortization of the cost of purchased intangibles is an expense that is not typically affected by operations during any particular period. Similarly, we view acquisition related expenses as events that are not necessarily reflective of operational performance during a period.
Lawsuit litigation expense. We may from time to time incur charges or benefits related to litigation that are outside of the ordinary course of our business. We believe it is useful to exclude such charges or benefits because we do not consider such amounts to be part of the ongoing operation of our business and because of the singular nature of the claims underlying the matter.
Employer payroll tax expense on equity incentive plans. We exclude employer payroll tax expense on equity incentive plans as these expenses are tied to the exercise or vesting of underlying equity awards and the price of our common stock at the time of vesting or exercise. As a result, these taxes may vary in any particular period independent of the financial and operating performance of our business.
Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. In addition, there are limitations in using non-GAAP financial measures because the non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with GAAP and may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies in our industry and exclude expenses that may have a material impact on our reported financial results.
The following table presents our non-GAAP income (loss) from operations and reconciles our GAAP to non-GAAP income (loss) from operations for the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017 (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31, | Nine Months Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||
2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
GAAP loss from operations | $ | (7,987 | ) | $ | (13,944 | ) | $ | (39,276 | ) | $ | (46,277 | ) | |||
Plus: Stock-based compensation | 9,933 | 8,118 | 29,778 | 23,719 | |||||||||||
Plus: Lawsuit litigation | — | 44 | — | 48 | |||||||||||
Plus: Amortization of purchased intangibles | 196 | 266 | 990 | 766 | |||||||||||
Plus: Amortization of stock-based compensation capitalized in software development costs | 228 | 190 | 702 | 524 | |||||||||||
Plus: Employer payroll tax on employee equity incentive plans | 309 | 403 | 1,557 | 1,553 | |||||||||||
Non-GAAP income (loss) from operations | $ | 2,679 | $ | (4,923 | ) | $ | (6,249 | ) | $ | (19,667 | ) |
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Non-GAAP income (loss) from operations for the periods presented reflects the same trends discussed above in “Results of Operations.” Although overall expenses were higher than the same periods presented in the prior fiscal year, expense as a percentage of revenue decreased significantly. As a result, we generated non-GAAP income from operations for the first time in the third quarter of fiscal 2018. We anticipate we will continue to maintain non-GAAP income from operations in future periods.
Liquidity and Capital Resources
Nine Months Ended December 31, | |||||||
2017 | 2016 | ||||||
(in thousands) | |||||||
Cash provided by operating activities | $ | 24,093 | $ | 9,337 | |||
Cash used in investing activities | (10,560 | ) | (9,848 | ) | |||
Cash provided by financing activities | 23,399 | 14,767 | |||||
Net increase in cash and cash equivalents | $ | 36,932 | $ | 14,256 |
To date, we have financed our operations primarily through private and public equity financings and customer payments for subscription services. We believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investment balances, together with cash generated from operations, will be sufficient to meet our working capital and capital expenditure requirements for at least the next 12 months.
Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our growth rate, the timing and extent of spending to support research and development efforts, the continued expansion of sales and marketing activities, the introduction of new and enhanced products, seasonality of our billing activities, timing and extent of spending to support our growth strategy, and the continued market acceptance of our products. In the event that additional financing is required from outside sources, we may not be able to raise such financing on terms acceptable to us or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital when desired, our business, operating results, and financial condition would be adversely affected.
Operating Activities
During the nine months ended December 31, 2017, cash provided by operating activities was $24.1 million as a result of a net loss of $38.4 million, adjusted by non-cash charges of $47.6 million and a change of $14.9 million in our operating assets and liabilities. The change in our operating assets and liabilities was primarily the result of a $9.2 million decrease in accounts receivable, an $8.9 million increase in deferred revenue, and a $2.5 million increase in accrued compensation and benefits and other liabilities. This was partially offset by a $4.4 million increase in prepaid expenses and other assets, a $0.8 million decrease in accounts payable, and a $0.5 million decrease in deferred rent.
During the nine months ended December 31, 2016, cash provided by operating activities was $9.3 million as a result of a net loss of $46.1 million, adjusted by non-cash charges of $37.9 million and a change of $17.5 million in our operating assets and liabilities. The change in our operating assets and liabilities was primarily the result of an $18.2 million increase in deferred revenue due to increased sales of subscriptions to our products, a $3.3 million increase in accrued compensation and benefits and other liabilities, a $3.1 million increase in deferred rent, and a $1.1 million increase in accounts payable. This was partially offset by a $6.5 million increase in accounts receivable and a $1.7 million increase in prepaid expenses and other assets.
Investing Activities
Cash used in investing activities during the nine months ended December 31, 2017 was $10.6 million, primarily as a result of purchases of short-term investments of $78.1 million, purchases of property and equipment of $17.6 million, and increases in capitalization of software development costs of $3.1 million. This was partially offset by proceeds from the maturity and sale of short-term investments of $88.2 million.
Cash used in investing activities during the nine months ended December 31, 2016 was $9.8 million, primarily as a result of purchases of short-term investments of $116.3 million, purchases of property and equipment of $16.6 million, and increases in capitalization of software development costs of $3.1 million. This was partially offset by proceeds from the maturity and sale of short-term investments of $126.1 million.
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Financing Activities
Cash provided by financing activities during the nine months ended December 31, 2017 was $23.4 million, which was the result of proceeds from the exercise of stock options and proceeds from our employee stock purchase plan.
Cash provided by financing activities during the nine months ended December 31, 2016 was $14.8 million, which was the result of proceeds from the exercise of stock options and proceeds from our employee stock purchase plan.
Contractual Obligations and Commitments
Our principal contractual commitments primarily consist of obligations under leases for office space and purchase commitments. Except as set forth in Note 5 — Commitments and Contingencies contained in the “Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements” in Item 1 of Part I of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, there were no material changes in our commitments under contractual obligations, as disclosed in our audited consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017 in our Annual Report.
Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements
We do not have any off-balance sheet arrangements as defined in Item 303(a)(4)(ii) of Regulation S-K.
Critical Accounting Policies
We prepare our condensed consolidated financial statements in accordance with GAAP. In the preparation of these condensed consolidated financial statements, we are required to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, costs and expenses, and related disclosures. To the extent that there are material differences between these estimates and actual results, our financial condition or results of operations would be affected. We base our estimates on past experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, and we evaluate these estimates on an ongoing basis. We refer to accounting estimates of this type as critical accounting policies and estimates.
There have been no significant changes in our critical accounting policies and estimates during the nine months ended December 31, 2017 as compared to the critical accounting policies and estimates described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017, or our Annual Report, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, on May 18, 2017.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
In May 2014, the FASB issued ASU 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606). The new guidance provides principles for recognizing revenue to which an entity expects to be entitled for the transfer of promised goods or services to customers. The new guidance will be effective for us in our fiscal year beginning April 1, 2018. The guidance may be applied retrospectively to each prior period presented (full retrospective method), or with the cumulative effect recognized as of the date of initial adoption (modified retrospective method). We currently intend to adopt Topic 606 using the modified retrospective approach in our first quarter of fiscal year 2019. As we continue to assess the new standard along with industry trends and internal progress, we may adjust our implementation plan accordingly.
We anticipate the significant impacts of adopting Topic 606 will include the deferral of incremental commission costs of obtaining contracts and additional disclosure requirements. Currently, we record commissions as sales and marketing expenses as incurred. Under the new standard, we will capitalize incremental commissions related to initial contracts over the expected period of benefit. We have not yet concluded the amortization period of these capitalized costs, which will affect the classification and magnitude of the deferred costs at each reporting period. We will continue to quantify the effects of adopting Topic 606 on our condensed consolidated financial statements, including the impact on our revenue as well as the changes discussed above.
In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), which requires lessees to put most leases on their balance sheets but recognize the expenses on their income statements in a manner similar to current practice. ASU 2016-02 states that a lessee would recognize a lease liability for the obligation to make lease payments and a right-to-use asset for the right to use the underlying asset for the lease term. The new standard will be effective for us in the fiscal year beginning
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April 1, 2019; early adoption is permitted. The amendments require a modified retrospective approach with optional practical expedients. We are currently evaluating the impact of this standard on our condensed consolidated financial statements.
In March 2016, the FASB Issued ASU No. 2016-09, Compensation-Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting. The updated guidance changes how companies account for certain aspects of share-based payment awards to employees, including the accounting for income taxes, forfeitures, and statutory tax withholding requirements, as well as classification in the statement of cash flows. We adopted this standard in our first quarter of fiscal year 2018. Upon adoption, we recognized all of the previously unrecognized excess tax benefits related to stock awards using the modified retrospective transition method. These excess tax benefits, recognized upon adoption, were recorded as a deferred tax asset, which was then fully offset by our U.S. federal and state deferred tax asset valuation allowance resulting in no impact to our accumulated deficit. Without the valuation allowance, our deferred tax asset would have increased by $39.5 million. All future excess tax benefits resulting from the settlement of stock awards will be recorded to the income tax provision.
In June 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-13, Financial Instruments—Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments, which amends guidance on reporting credit losses for assets held at amortized cost basis and available-for-sale debt securities. The updated guidance requires that credit losses on available-for-sale debt securities be presented as an allowance rather than as a write-down. The measurement of credit losses for newly recognized financial assets and subsequent changes in the allowance for credit losses are recorded in the statement of income. The update to the standard will be effective for us in the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2020; early adoption is permitted in the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2019. We are currently evaluating the effect the standard will have on our condensed consolidated financial statements.
In May 2017, the FASB issued ASU 2017-09, Compensation—Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Scope of Modification Accounting, which amends the scope of modification accounting for share-based payment arrangements. The ASU provides guidance on the types of changes to the terms or conditions of share-based payment awards to which an entity would be required to apply modification accounting. The new guidance will be effective for us in our fiscal year beginning April 1, 2018. We are currently evaluating the impact of this standard on our condensed consolidated financial statements.
Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Foreign Currency Exchange Risk
Our subscription agreements are primarily denominated in U.S. dollars. A portion of our operating expenses are incurred outside the United States and are denominated in foreign currencies and subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, particularly changes in the Euro. Additionally, fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates may cause us to recognize transaction gains and losses in our statements of operations. To date, foreign currency transaction gains and losses have not been material to our financial statements, and we have not engaged in any foreign currency hedging transactions. As our international operations grow, we will continue to reassess our approach to managing the risks relating to fluctuations in currency rates. The effect of a hypothetical 10% change in foreign currency exchange rates applicable to our business would not have had a material impact on our historical consolidated financial statements.
Interest Rate Risk
We had cash and cash equivalents of $125.2 million as of December 31, 2017, consisting of bank deposits, commercial paper, and money market funds. These interest-earning instruments carry a degree of interest rate risk. To date, fluctuations in our interest income have not been significant. We also had no outstanding debt for any of the periods presented. We have an agreement to maintain cash balances at a financial institution of no less than $8.0 million as collateral for three letters of credit in favor of our landlords. The letters of credit carry a fixed interest rate of 1%.
We had short-term investments of $107.8 million as of December 31, 2017, consisting of certificates of deposit, commercial paper, corporate notes and bonds, U.S. treasury securities, and U.S. agency securities. Our investments in marketable securities are made for capital preservation purposes. We do not enter into investments for trading or speculative purposes and have not used any derivative financial instruments to manage our interest rate risk exposure. Due to the short-term nature of these investments, we have not been exposed to, nor do we anticipate being exposed to, material risks due to changes in interest rates.
A hypothetical 10% change in interest rates during any of the periods presented would not have had a material impact on our consolidated financial statements.
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Inflation Risk
We do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations.
Item 4. Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, has evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a- 15(e) and 15d- 15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”)) as of the end of the period covered by this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Based on this evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of December 31, 2017, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective to provide reasonable assurance that information we are required to disclose in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.
Limitations on the Effectiveness of Controls
In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, management recognizes that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives. In addition, the design of disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints and that management is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the benefits of possible controls and procedures relative to their costs.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
There was no change in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rule 13a-15(d) and 15d-15(d) of the Exchange Act that occurred during the quarter ended December 31, 2017 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
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PART II — OTHER INFORMATION
Item 1. Legal Proceedings
On November 5, 2012, CA, Inc. filed an action against us in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York alleging that we willfully infringe certain of its U.S. patents. CA, Inc. asserts that a portion of our application performance management software – the .NET and Java agents – infringes certain claims of those patents. Among other things, CA, Inc. has sought permanent injunctive relief against us and damages in an amount to be determined at trial. Specifically, CA, Inc. alleges in the complaint that we willfully infringe certain CA, Inc. United States Patents, including U.S. Patent Nos. 7,225,361 B2, or the ’361 patent, 7,512,935 B1, or the ’935 patent, and 7,797,580 B2, or the ’580 patent. Discovery is complete in the case, and the court has ruled on summary judgment motions filed by both parties. On April 8, 2015, the court granted CA, Inc.’s partial summary judgment motion seeking to estop New Relic from contesting the validity of the ’361 and ’580 patents. On September 28, 2015, the court granted New Relic’s partial summary judgment motion as to non-infringement of the ’935 patent by the Java and .NET agents, and denied summary judgment as to invalidity of the ’935 patent. Following the court’s summary judgment rulings, the only remaining claims for infringement in this litigation are CA, Inc.’s assertions that the Java agent infringes asserted claims of the ’361 and ’580 patents. A trial date is not currently set.
We intend to continue to contest this lawsuit vigorously. If this matter has an adverse outcome, it may have an impact on our financial position, results from operations, and cash flows. Should CA, Inc. prevail on its claims, we could be required to pay substantial damages for past sales of such products, enjoined from using and selling such products if a license or other right to continue selling our products is not made available to us, and required to pay substantial ongoing royalties and comply with unfavorable terms if such a license is made available to us. Any of these outcomes could result in a material adverse effect on our business. However, we cannot at this time predict the likely outcome of this proceeding or estimate the amount or range of loss or possible loss that may arise from it. Even if we were to prevail, litigation is costly and time-consuming, and could divert the attention of our management and key personnel from our business operations and dissuade potential customers from purchasing our products, either of which could materially harm our business.
During the course of litigation, we anticipate announcements of the results of hearings and motions, and other interim developments related to the litigation, which our competitors could try to use to their competitive advantage by creating uncertainty amongst our customers. If securities analysts or investors regard these announcements as negative, the market price of our common stock may decline.
In addition, from time to time, we are involved in legal proceedings and are subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. Although the results of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, we currently believe that the final outcome of these ordinary course matters will not have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition, or cash flows. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources, and other factors.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
We have identified the following risks and uncertainties that may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations. This description includes any material changes to and supersedes the description of the risk factors disclosed in Part I, Item 1A of our Annual Report. We have marked with an asterisk (*) those risks described below that reflect material substantive changes from the risks disclosed in Part I, Item 1A of our Annual Report.
The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also significantly impair our business operations. Our business could be harmed by any of these risks. The trading price of our common stock could decline due to any of these risks, and you may lose all or part of your investment. In assessing these risks, you should also refer to the other information contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including our condensed consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes.
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We have a history of losses and we expect our revenue growth rate to continue to decline. As our costs increase, we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve and sustain profitability. *
We have incurred net losses in each fiscal period since our inception, including net losses of $38.4 million and $46.1 million in the nine months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. At December 31, 2017, we had an accumulated deficit of $298.5 million. We expect to continue to expend substantial financial and other resources on, among other things:
• | sales and marketing, including expanding our direct sales organization and marketing programs, particularly for larger customers; |
• | investments in our research and development team, and the development of new products, capabilities, features, and functionality; |
• | expansion of our operations and infrastructure, both domestically and internationally; |
• | hiring of additional employees; and |
• | general administration, including legal, accounting, and other expenses related to our growing operations and infrastructure. |
These investments may not result in increased revenue or growth of our business. We expect that our revenue growth rate will continue to decline over time. Accordingly, we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to offset our expected cost increases and to achieve and sustain profitability. If we fail to achieve and sustain profitability, our operating results and business would be harmed.
We have a limited operating history, which makes it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects and increases the risk of your investment.
We were founded in 2007 and launched our first commercial product in 2008. This limited operating history limits our ability to forecast our future operating results and subjects us to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. Our historical revenue growth should not be considered indicative of our future performance. We have encountered and will encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries, such as determining appropriate investments of our limited resources, market adoption of our existing and future products and platform capabilities, competition from other companies, acquiring and retaining customers, hiring, integrating, training and retaining skilled personnel, developing new products and platform capabilities, determining prices and pricing structures for our products and platform capabilities, unforeseen expenses, and challenges in forecasting accuracy. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties, which we use to plan our business, are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating and financial results and our business could suffer.
We have experienced significant growth in recent periods and expect our growth to continue. If we are not able to manage this growth and expansion, or if our business does not grow as we expect, our operating results may suffer.
We have experienced significant growth in our customer adoption and have expanded and intend to continue to significantly expand our operations, including our domestic and international employee headcount. This growth has placed, and will continue to place, significant demands on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure.
To manage this growth effectively, we must continue to improve our operational, financial, and management systems and controls by, among other things:
• | effectively attracting, training, integrating, and retaining a large number of new employees, particularly members of our sales and marketing teams and employees and consultants in jurisdictions outside of the United States; |
• | further improving our key business systems, processes, and information technology infrastructure, including our and third-party hosted data centers, to support our business needs; |
• | enhancing our information, training, and communication systems to ensure that our employees are well-coordinated and can effectively communicate with each other and our customers; and |
• | improving our internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures to ensure timely and accurate reporting of our operational and financial results. |
If we fail to manage our expansion, implement and transition to our new systems, implement improvements, or maintain effective internal controls and procedures, our costs and expenses may increase more than we plan and we may lose the ability to increase our customer adoption, enhance our existing solutions, develop new solutions, satisfy our customers, respond to competitive pressures, or otherwise execute our business plan. If we are unable to manage our growth, our operating results likely will be harmed.
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Our business depends on our customers purchasing additional subscriptions and products from us and renewing their subscriptions. Any decline in our customer expansions and renewals would harm our future operating results. *
Our future success depends in part on our ability to sell more subscriptions and additional products to our current customers. If our customers do not purchase additional subscriptions and products from us, our revenue may decline and our operating results may be harmed.
In addition, in order for us to maintain or improve our operating results, it is important that our customers enter into paid subscriptions and renew their subscriptions when the contract term expires. Many of our customers start their accounts on a free trial and have no obligation to begin a paid subscription. Our customers that enter into paid subscriptions have no obligation to renew their subscriptions after the expiration of their subscription period. Subscription periods are most often one year in length, but in recent fiscal years we have secured an increased percentage of multi-year commitments with respect to new paid business accounts. In addition, our customers may renew for lower subscription amounts or for shorter contract lengths. In the past, some of our customers have elected not to renew their agreements with us, and we cannot accurately predict future net expansion rates. Moreover, certain legacy customers with annual subscriptions have the right to cancel their agreements prior to the termination of the subscription term.
Our customer expansions and renewals may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including: customer usage, customer satisfaction with our products and platform capabilities and customer support, our prices, the prices of competing products, mergers and acquisitions affecting our customer base, consolidation of affiliates’ multiple paid business accounts into a single paid business account, the effects of global economic conditions, or reductions in our customers’ spending levels generally. These factors may also be exacerbated if, consistent with our growth strategy, our customer base continues to grow to encompass larger enterprises.
If we are not able to develop enhancements to our products, increase adoption and usage of our products, and introduce new products and capabilities that achieve market acceptance, our business could be harmed. *
Our ability to attract new customers and increase revenue from existing customers depends in large part on our ability to enhance and improve our existing products, increase adoption and usage of our products, and introduce new products and capabilities. The success of any enhancement or new products depends on several factors, including timely completion, adequate quality testing, introduction, and market acceptance. Any products that we develop may not be introduced in a timely or cost-effective manner, may contain errors or defects, or may not achieve the broad market acceptance necessary to generate sufficient revenue. If we are unable to successfully enhance our existing products to meet customer requirements, increase adoption and usage of our products, or develop new products, our business and operating results will be harmed.
If customers do not expand their use of our products beyond the current predominant use cases, our ability to grow our business and operating results may be adversely affected. *
Most of our customers currently use our products to support application performance management functions, and the majority of our revenue to date has been from our application performance management products. Our ability to grow our business depends in part on our ability to persuade current and future customers to expand their use of our software to additional use cases, such as infrastructure monitoring and customer usage analytics. If we fail to achieve market acceptance of our software, or if a competitor establishes a more widely adopted solution, our ability to grow our business and financial results will be adversely affected. In addition, as the amount of data stored for a given customer grows, that customer may have to agree to higher subscription fees for certain of our software or limit the amount of data stored in order to stay within the limits of its existing subscription. If their fees grow significantly, customers may react adversely to this pricing model, particularly if they perceive that the value of our software has become eclipsed by such fees or otherwise.
We have limited experience with respect to determining the optimal prices and pricing structures for our products.
We expect that we may need to change our pricing model from time to time, including as a result of global economic conditions, reductions in our customers’ spending levels generally or changes in how computing infrastructure is broadly consumed. Similarly, as we introduce new products or services, or as a result of the evolution of our existing products and services, we may have difficulty determining the appropriate price structure for our products. In addition, as new and existing competitors introduce new products or services that compete with ours, or revise their pricing structures, we may be unable to attract new customers at the same price or based on the same pricing model as we have used historically. Moreover, as we continue to target selling our products to larger organizations, these larger organizations may demand substantial price concessions. As a result, we may be required from time to time to revise our pricing structure or reduce our prices, which could adversely affect our business.
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Failure to effectively expand our marketing and sales capabilities could harm our ability to increase our customer adoption and achieve broader market acceptance of our products. *
Our ability to increase our customer adoption and achieve broader market acceptance of our products will depend to a significant extent on our ability to expand our marketing and sales operations, with an emphasis on continuing to improve our ability to target sales to large enterprise organizations. We plan to continue expanding our sales force, both domestically and internationally. We also dedicate significant resources to sales and marketing programs, including online advertising and field marketing programs. For example, during the nine months ended December 31, 2017, sales and marketing expenses represented 59% of our revenue. The effectiveness of our marketing programs has varied over time and may vary in the future due to competition. All of these efforts have required and will continue to require us to invest significant financial and other resources. If we are unable to hire, develop, and retain talented sales personnel, if our sales personnel are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of time, or if our sales and marketing programs are not effective, our ability to increase our customer adoption and achieve broader market acceptance of our products could be harmed.
If we are unable to continue to increase the sales of our solutions to large enterprises while mitigating the risks associated with serving such customers, our business, financial position, and results of operations may suffer.
Our growth strategy is dependent, in part, upon the continued increase of sales to large enterprises. Sales to large customers involve risks that may not be present or that are present to a lesser extent with sales to smaller entities, such as longer sales cycles, more complex customer requirements, substantial upfront sales costs, and less predictability in completing some of our sales. For example, enterprise customers may require considerable time to evaluate and test our applications and those of our competitors prior to making a purchase decision and placing an order. A number of factors influence the length and variability of our sales cycle, including the need to educate potential customers about the uses and benefits of our applications, the discretionary nature of purchasing and budget cycles, and the competitive nature of evaluation and purchasing approval processes. As a result, the length of our sales cycle, from identification of the opportunity to deal closure, may vary significantly from customer to customer, with sales to large enterprises typically taking longer to complete. Moreover, large enterprise customers often begin to deploy our products on a limited basis, but nevertheless demand extensive configuration, integration services, and pricing negotiations, which increase our upfront investment in the sales effort with no guarantee that these customers will deploy our products widely enough across their organization to justify our substantial upfront investment.
In addition, our ability to improve our sales of products to large enterprises is dependent on us continuing to attract and retain sales personnel with experience in selling to large organizations. Also, because security breaches with respect to larger, high-profile enterprises are likely to be heavily publicized, there is increased reputational risk associated with serving such customers. If we are unable to continue to increase sales of our products to large enterprise customers while mitigating the risks associated with serving such customers, our business, financial position, and results of operations may suffer.
Because users are able to configure our platform to collect and store confidential or proprietary information, security concerns could result in additional cost and liability to us or inhibit sales of our products. *
Our operations involve protection of our intellectual property, along with the storage and transmission and processing of our customers’ proprietary data, which customers might choose to have include some personally identifiable information, and security breaches, computer malware, and computer hacking attacks could expose us to a risk of loss of this information, loss of business, severe reputational damage adversely affecting customer or investor confidence, regulatory investigations and orders, litigation, indemnity obligations, damages for contract breach, penalties for violation of applicable laws or regulations, and significant costs for remediation and incentives offered to customers or other business partners in an effort to maintain business relationships after a breach and other liabilities.
Cyber-attacks and other malicious Internet-based activity continue to increase generally. If our products or security measures are perceived as weak or actually compromised as a result of third-party action, employee or customer error, malfeasance, stolen or fraudulently obtained log-in credentials, or otherwise, our customers may curtail or stop using our products, our reputation could be damaged, our business may be harmed, and we could incur significant liability. We may be unable to anticipate or prevent techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems because they change frequently and generally are not detected until after an incident has occurred. As we increase our customer adoption and our brand becomes more widely known and recognized, we may become more of a target for third parties seeking to compromise our security systems or gain unauthorized access to our customers’ data.
If we are not able to detect and indicate activity on our platform that might be nefarious in nature, our customers could suffer harm. In such cases, we could face exposure to legal claims, particularly if the customer suffered actual harm. We cannot assure you that any limitations of liability provisions in our contracts for a security lapse or breach would be enforceable or
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adequate or would otherwise protect us from any liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim. We also cannot be sure that our existing insurance coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or will be available in sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims related to a security breach, or that the insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our expansion rates, financial condition, operating results, and reputation.
Changes in privacy laws, regulations, and standards may cause our business to suffer. *
We are subject to federal, state, and international laws relating to the collection, use, retention, security, and transfer of personally identifiable information. The regulatory framework for privacy and security issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and as a result implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. We publicly post documentation regarding our practices concerning the processing, use, and disclosure of data. Any failure by us, our suppliers, or other parties with whom we do business to comply with this documentation or with other federal, state, or international regulations could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities or others. In many jurisdictions, enforcement actions and consequences for noncompliance are rising. In the United States, these include enforcement actions in response to rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of federal agencies and state attorneys general and legislatures and consumer protection agencies. In addition, privacy advocates and industry groups have regularly proposed, and may propose in the future, self-regulatory standards with which we must legally comply or that contractually apply to us, like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI DSS. If we fail to follow these security standards, such as those set forth in the PCI DSS, even if no customer information is compromised, we may incur significant fines or experience a significant increase in costs.
Internationally, virtually every jurisdiction in which we operate has established its own data security and privacy legal framework with which we or our customers must comply, including but not limited to the European Union, or EU. The EU’s data protection landscape is currently unstable, resulting in possible significant operational costs for internal compliance and risk to our business. While we have taken steps to mitigate the impact on us, such as implementing standard contractual clauses and self-certifying under the EU-US Privacy Shield, the efficacy and longevity of these mechanisms remains uncertain. In addition, the EU has adopted the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which is scheduled to go into effect in May 2018 and contains numerous requirements and changes from existing EU law, including more robust obligations on data processors and heavier documentation requirements for data protection compliance programs by companies. Specifically, the GDPR will introduce numerous privacy-related changes for companies operating in the EU, including greater control for data subjects (e.g., the “right to be forgotten”), increased data portability for EU consumers, data breach notification requirements, and increased fines. In particular, under the GDPR, fines of up to 20 million euros or up to 4% of the annual global revenue of the noncompliant company, whichever is greater, could be imposed for violations of certain of the GDPR’s requirements. The GDPR requirements apply not only to third-party transactions, but also to transfers of information between us and our subsidiaries, including employee information.
Complying with the GDPR may cause us to incur substantial operational costs or require us to change our business practices. Despite our efforts to bring practices into compliance before the effective date of the GDPR, we may not be successful either due to internal or external factors such as resource allocation limitations or a lack of vendor cooperation. Non-compliance could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities, customers, data subjects, or others. We may also experience difficulty retaining or obtaining new European or multi-national customers due to the legal requirements, compliance cost, potential risk exposure, and uncertainty for these entities, and we may experience significantly increased liability with respect to these customers pursuant to the terms set forth in our engagements with them. We may find it necessary to establish systems to maintain personal data originating from the EU in the European Economic Area, which may involve substantial expense and distraction from other aspects of our business. In the meantime, there could be uncertainty as to how to comply with EU privacy law.
Domestic laws in this area are also complex and developing rapidly. Many state legislatures have adopted legislation that regulates how businesses operate online, including measures relating to privacy, data security and data breaches. Laws in 48 states require businesses to provide notice to customers whose personally identifiable information has been disclosed as a result of a data breach, including New Mexico, which enacted its data breach notification law in April 2017. The laws are not consistent, and compliance in the event of a widespread data breach is costly. Further, states are constantly amending existing laws, requiring attention to frequently changing regulatory requirements. Additionally, in August 2017, Delaware amended its data breach notification law in order to expand what constitutes “personal information”, to require breach notification to the Delaware Attorney General, and to require the provision of credit monitoring in certain circumstances. In October 2017, a new
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Nevada law took effect that requires website and online service operators to post a privacy notice on their websites regarding the company’s privacy practices. Nevada is the third state to have such a privacy policy requirement.
Because the interpretation and application of many privacy and data protection laws along with contractually imposed industry standards are uncertain, it is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data management practices or the features of our products and platform capabilities. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits, and other claims and penalties, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our products and platform capabilities, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any inability to adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy and data security laws, regulations, and policies, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales, and adversely affect our business. Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our products. Privacy and data security concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our products, particularly in certain industries and foreign countries. If we are not able to adjust to changing laws, regulations, and standards related to the Internet, our business may be harmed.
If we fail to adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards, and changing customer needs, requirements, or preferences, our products may become less competitive.
The software industry is subject to rapid technological change, evolving industry standards and practices, and changing customer needs, requirements, and preferences. The success of our business will depend, in part, on our ability to adapt and respond effectively to these changes on a timely basis. If we are unable to develop and sell new products that satisfy our customers and provide enhancements and new features for our existing products and platform capabilities that keep pace with rapid technological and industry change, our revenue and operating results could be adversely affected. If new technologies emerge that are able to deliver competitive products and applications at lower prices, more efficiently, more conveniently, or more securely, such technologies could adversely impact our ability to compete.
Our platform must also integrate with a variety of network, hardware, mobile, and software platforms and technologies, and we need to continuously modify and enhance our products and platform capabilities to adapt to changes and innovation in these technologies. If developers widely adopt new software platforms, we would have to develop new versions of our products and platform capabilities to work with those new platforms. This development effort may require significant engineering, marketing, and sales resources, all of which would affect our business and operating results. Any failure of our products and platform capabilities to operate effectively with future infrastructure platforms and technologies could reduce the demand for our products. If we are unable to respond to these changes in a cost-effective manner, our products may become less marketable and less competitive or obsolete, and our operating results may be negatively affected.
We are dependent upon lead generation strategies to drive our sales and revenue. If these marketing strategies fail to continue to generate sales opportunities, our ability to grow our revenue will be adversely affected.
We are dependent upon lead generation strategies to generate sales opportunities. These strategies may not be successful in continuing to generate sufficient sales opportunities necessary to increase our revenue. To the extent that we are unable to successfully attract and grow paying customers, we will not realize the intended benefits of these marketing strategies and our ability to grow our revenue will be adversely affected.
The market in which we participate is intensely competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, our operating results could be harmed. *
The market for application and infrastructure performance monitoring is rapidly evolving, significantly fragmented, and highly competitive, with relatively low barriers to entry in some segments. Our competitors fall into four primary categories:
• | performance monitoring providers such as AppDynamics, Inc. (an operating division of Cisco Systems, Inc.), Datadog, Inc., Dynatrace LLC, and Splunk Inc.; |
• | diversified technology companies such as International Business Machines Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, and Oracle Corporation; |
• | large enterprise software and service companies such as BMC Software, Inc. and CA, Inc.; and |
• | companies offering analytics products competing with our New Relic Insights product, including Amazon Web Services, Inc. and Google Inc. |
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Some of our competitors and potential competitors are larger and have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer relationships, larger budgets, and significantly greater resources than we do, and have the operating flexibility to bundle competing products and services with other software offerings at little or no perceived incremental cost, including offering them at a lower price as part of a larger sale. As a result, our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, or customer requirements. In addition, some competitors may offer products or services that address one or a limited number of functions at lower prices or with greater depth than our products. Our current and potential competitors may develop and market new technologies with comparable functionality to our products and platform capabilities, and this could lead to us having to decrease prices in order to remain competitive.
With the introduction of new technologies, the evolution of our products and platform capabilities and new market entrants, we expect competition to intensify in the future. Moreover, as we expand the scope of our solutions, we may face additional competition. Additionally, some potential customers, particularly large enterprises, may elect to develop their own internal products. If one or more of our competitors were to merge or partner with another of our competitors or another large diversified technology company, the change in the competitive landscape could also adversely affect our ability to compete effectively. For example, in March 2017, Cisco Systems, Inc. completed its purchase of AppDynamics, Inc. If we are unable to maintain our current pricing due to the competitive pressures, our margins will be reduced and our operating results will be negatively affected. In addition, pricing pressures and increased competition generally could result in reduced sales, reduced margins, losses, or the failure of our solutions to achieve or maintain more widespread market acceptance, any of which could harm our business.
Because we recognize revenue from our subscriptions over the subscription term, downturns or upturns in new sales and renewals may not be immediately reflected in our operating results and may be difficult to discern.
We generally recognize revenue from customers ratably over the terms of their subscriptions. A portion of the revenue we report in each quarter is derived from the recognition of revenue relating to subscriptions entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed subscriptions in any single quarter may have a small impact on our revenue for that quarter. However, such a decline will negatively affect our revenue in future quarters. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales and market acceptance of our solutions, and potential changes in our rate of renewals, may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods. In addition, a significant majority of our costs are expensed as incurred, while revenue is recognized over the life of the agreement with our customer. A