Upland Software Q2 2023 Earnings Report

Upland Software EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.40
• Consensus EPS: $0.40
• Beat/Miss: Met Expectations
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Upland Software Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $74.50 million
• Expected Revenue: $73.00 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.50 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Upland Software Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2023
• Date: 8/3/2023
• Time: N/A
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 3, 2023
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Upland Software (NASDAQ:UPLD) is a provider of enterprise work management software delivered through a cloud-based, software-as-a-service model. The company offers a suite of integrated applications designed to help organizations plan, execute and measure work across various business functions including project management, marketing workflows, document automation and contract management.

Its flagship product lines include Upland PSA for professional services automation, Upland Bluebeam for digital collaboration in architecture and engineering workflows, Upland Qvidian for proposal automation, and Upland Pinpoint for customer communication management. These solutions enable companies to automate routine tasks, improve cross-functional collaboration, and gain real-time visibility into key performance metrics.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Upland Software serves a global customer base spanning North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The company supports mid- to large-sized organizations across industries such as professional services, finance, healthcare and manufacturing. Upland continues to expand its product portfolio through strategic acquisitions and ongoing investment in platform innovation to address evolving enterprise work management needs.

Upland Software Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Upland beat Q2 revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance midpoints while expanding relationships with 313 existing customers (including 32 major expansions) and adding 155 new customers.
• Second quarter total revenue of $74.5 million declined 7% year-over-year, with subscription and support down 6%, perpetual license revenue falling 32% and professional services revenue down 18%.
• The company lowered its full-year 2023 revenue guidance by $2 million and adjusted EBITDA midpoint by $2.8 million, citing accelerated churn of sunset assets, and expects Q3 revenue to decline 8% at the midpoint.
• Upland generated $6.7 million in free cash flow in Q2 and maintains strong liquidity of approximately $323 million, with net debt of $257 million and $30–40 million of expected full-year free cash flow.
• Management outlined progress on a new growth plan—including adding inside sales, digital marketing, enhanced customer success and an India COE for product innovation—to achieve a 5% core organic growth goal in 2024.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Upland Software second quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. The conference call will be recorded. Simultaneously webcast at investor.uplandsoftware.com, a replay will be available there for 12 months. By now, everyone should have access to the second quarter 2023 earnings release, which was distributed today at 4:00 P.M. Eastern Time. If you haven't received the release, it's available on Upland's website. I'd now like to turn the call over to Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO of Upland Software. Please go ahead, sir.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

All right, well, thank you, and welcome to our Q2 2023 earnings call. I'm joined today by Mike Hill, our CFO. On today's call, I will start with our Q2 review, and following that, Mike will provide some detail on the Q2 numbers and our guidance. After that, we'll open the call up for Q&A. Before we get started, Mike, can you read the safe harbor statement?

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Jack. During today's call, we will include statements that are considered forward-looking within the meanings of the securities laws. A detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties associated with such statements is contained in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. The forward-looking statements made today are based on our views and assumptions and on information currently available to Upland management as of today. We do not intend or undertake any duty to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements. On this call, Upland will refer to non-GAAP financial measures that, when used in combination with GAAP results, provide Upland management with additional analytical tools to understand its operations. Upland has provided reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in our press release announcing our second quarter results, which are available on the investor relations section of our website.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

Please note that we're unable to reconcile any forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures to their directly comparable GAAP financial measures, because the information which is needed to complete a reconciliation is unavailable at this time without unreasonable effort. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Jack.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

All right. Thanks, Mike. Here are the headlines for Q2. We beat our Q2 revenue and EBITDA guidance midpoints. We in the second quarter expanded relationships with 313 existing customers, 32 of which were major expansions. We also welcomed 155 new customers to Upland in the second quarter, including 20 new major customers. New customer deals were distributed across our products and industry verticals. On the product front in Q2, I'll note that this was a busy quarter for our sales enablement product, Altify, starting with a webinar that featured Forrester, which covered best practices for B2B enterprise sales.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Following that, a launch of the new Altify book, Not Just Another Vendor, which is a collection of real experiences and best practices from outstanding sales leaders who have used account planning to multiply pipeline and grow revenue. Two of Upland's products were listed among notable vendors in recent Forrester Landscape reports. Upland Altify was included in the Account-Based Selling Technologies landscape. That was the Q2 2023 report. Upland Kapost was included in the Content Engagement Solutions landscape. Again, the Q2 2023 report. Qvidian announced its latest release, which is focused on UI and UX improvements, really optimizing the user experience, and also a significantly revamped content library that aims to help customers increase productivity, shorten sales cycles, and accelerate win rates on deals.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

In June, Upland was awarded HP's Global Partner Excellence Award for our continued efforts in providing HP customers with flexible, dynamic product solutions that enable modern document life cycles for their businesses, and that align with their unique requirements. It's still early in the process, but we are making solid progress on our new growth plan, and remain focused on building shareholder value. Specifically, our goal is to achieve a mid-single-digit core organic growth rate next year. Targeting 5% core organic growth next year, plus or minus. It's not guidance, it's a goal, and no guarantees, but our organization, our team, is laser-focused on that achievement. With that, I'm gonna turn the call back over to Mike.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

Thank you, Jack. I'll cover the financial results for the second quarter and our outlook for the third quarter and full year 2023. On the income statement, total revenue from the second quarter was $74.5 million, representing a decrease of 7% year-over-year. Recurring revenue from subscription and support decreased 6% year-over-year to $70.5 million. Perpetual license revenue decreased to $1.3 million in the second quarter, down from $1.9 million in the second quarter of 2022. Professional services revenue was $2.8 million for the quarter, an 18% year-over-year decline. These revenue declines are generally as expected, pursuant to our strategic product realignments and future growth initiative described on our previous calls.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

Overall, gross margin was 68% during the second quarter, and our product gross margin remained strong at 69%, or 74% when adding back depreciation and amortization, which we refer to as cash gross margin. Operating expenses, excluding acquisition-related expenses, depreciation, amortization, and stock-based compensation, were $37.7 million for the quarter, or 51% of total revenue, all generally as expected. Acquisition-related expenses were approximately $1.1 million in the second quarter, which represents the last of our restructuring costs from our acquisitions in Q1 of 2022. Acquisition-related expenses should remain insignificant going forward until our acquisition activity picks back up in the future. Our second quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA was $16.6 million, or 22% of total revenue, down from $24.5 million, or 31% of total revenue for the second quarter of 2022.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

This adjusted EBITDA decline is generally as expected, considering our growth investments described on previous calls. The cash flow for the second quarter of 2023, GAAP operating cash flow was $7 million, and free cash flow was $6.7 million. We continue to anticipate $30 million-$40 million of free cash flow generation for the full year 2023. Our ongoing free cash flow generation is in addition to our existing liquidity of approximately $323 million, comprised of approximate $263 million of cash on our balance sheet as of June 30th, 2023, plus our $60 million undrawn revolver. As of June 30th, 2023, we had outstanding net debt of approximately $257 million after factoring in the cash on our balance sheet. Now, for guidance.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

We are lowering our full year 2023 revenue guidance by midpoint by $2 million, due to accelerated when, not if, sunset asset churn and lower perpetual license and TSO revenue. We are revising down our 2023 adjusted EBITDA guidance by $2.8 million, the midpoint by $2.8 million, due to that lower revenue level, as well as some incremental growth investment in our CLA product group. For the quarter ending September 30th, 2023, Upland expects reported total revenue to be between $70.4 million and $76.4 million, including subscription and support revenue between $65.5 million and $70.5 million, for a decline in total revenue of 8% at the midpoint over the quarter ended September 30th, 2022.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

Third quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $14.5 million and $17.5 million, for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 22% at the midpoint. This adjusted EBITDA guide at the midpoint is a decrease of 36% from the quarter ended September 30, 2022. For the full year ending December 31, 2023, Upland expects reported total revenue to be between $292.1 million and $304.1 million, including subscription and support revenue between $274 million and $284 million, for a decline in total revenue of 6% at the midpoint over the year ended December 31st, 2022. Full year 2023 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $63.2 million and $69.2 million, for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 22% at the midpoint.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

This adjusted EBITDA guide at the midpoint, is a decrease of 32% over the year ended December 31st, 2022. With that, I'll pass the call back to Jack.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

All right. Thanks, Mike. We are now ready to open the call up for Q&A.

[Operator]

Great. Thanks, Jack. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Once again, star and one. We'll pause just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. It looks like our first call comes from Scott Berg with Needham. Please go ahead.

[Michael Rackers, Equity Research Associate at Needham]

Hi, everyone. This is Michael Rackers on for Scott today. Congrats on the quarter here, but how are you thinking about the leverage profile over time, and then potentially refinancing debt as it comes due over the next few years? Thanks.

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

Yeah. Michael, this is Mike. First of all, our debt is due August of 2026, our term debt, and we've got the interest rate locked at 5.4% through the remainder of that term. We do... We've got plenty of time to deal with that, we think, as hopefully the interest rate environment, the rate curve comes down over time. Our leverage right now, at sort of depressed EBITDA levels, is about 3.9 times net debt leverage to annual EBITDA. As our growth investments kick in and EBITDA levels improve, and we build cash every year with our $30 million-$40 million

[Mike Hill, CFO at Upland Software]

of free cash flow generation, thus reducing net debt over time, those, those lines should get a little bit easier for us from a, from a, refi standpoint, and we'll pull the trigger on a refi in the future.

[Operator]

Our next call comes from Jeff Van Rhee with Craig-Hallum. Jeff, go ahead.

[Jeff Van Rhee, Equity Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Great, thanks. A couple from me. Hey, guys, just, just on sales, maybe Jack, I know, you're spending a lot of time and effort to drive that organic growth acceleration into next year. I know you've made a lot of changes. Can you just expand on what's going on? I know you said you're early innings, but have made good progress. Maybe a little more there. What have you changed? Where are you? Rep structure, quote, whatever you're changing?

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Sure. A couple things. One, you know, if you look at where we've built our growth plan, it's really around three efficient motions, two of which are go-to-market. The first is inside sales. Complementing our field sales motion with an inside sales capacity and a full complement of sales development reps or SDRs. In addition to that, it's really been about adding a modern digital marketing capability to provide for much more efficient pipeline generation. We have, at this point, fully filled out our SDR roster and are just a few heads short on the SDR roster. We're just bringing these classes on according to a schedule. The change in the organization's culture has been significant.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

There's been a ton of work going on on the product marketing side, in terms of positioning our products in the right place in the market, with the right pricing. Jeff, as you know, as a part of this new go-to-market plan, we're really focused in on a group of, you know, roughly 15 growth products that combine, comprise, I should say, roughly 75% of our revenue, and where we think we can really drive some outsized growth. You know, we brought in, a couple quarters ago, a new sales leader who came out of Infor, a new marketing leader who came out of TIBCO.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Those folks are fully in, they've built out their teams, and we are starting to see, you know, some early green shoots, particularly around pipeline generation, which is, you know, where you would expect to see signs of progress, first. If you look at pipe generation sequentially and year-over-year, if you look at the second quarter, it's, you know, a pretty healthy uptick from what we were seeing, healthy uptick sequentially from Q1, healthy uptick year-over-year.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Really across the board, in terms of marketing, demand gen, in terms of product marketing, and sales enablement, in terms of adding a new inside sales capacity, in terms of radically expanding our SDR capacity, and in terms of providing our field sales force with a full complement of tools and training and collateral, that they need to successfully execute, it's really a completely different organization. In addition to that, the third leg of our growth plan is really centered around our Indian COE, Center of Excellence for development. While we will continue to have some portion of our product development onshore, we are expanding aggressively the size of our India COE.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

This enables us to not only, we believe, expand margins through time, but also increase our product investment. You'll see the pace of our product investment and product innovation, in those, particularly those growth products, increase here as we move through the end of this year and into next year. Let me stop there, as a kind of summary overview, and I'd be happy to take any other questions from you on that topic.

[Jeff Van Rhee, Equity Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Yeah, no, that's great. Very helpful. Thanks, Jack. Then one other, you know, obviously, with roughly the 15 core growth products, you know, about 3/4 of revenue, and then the other products that make up the 25%, you know, altogether kind of the go-forward suite, excluding the sunset, products. In terms of the retention on those products, you know, obviously, there's the growth vector, but also the retention vector. How is retention trending? You know, have there been any changes in terms of how you're approaching or attacking, the retention issue?

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Retention has been tracking in accordance with plan. The target remains what it was, which is, you know, we focus on an NDRR KPI that we report publicly on an annual basis. The target is to get to 95% or better for this year, right, you know, as reported as of December 31st. I would say at this point, Jeff, no significant changes. Now, in terms of the groundwork that we are laying in to improve retention rates through time, there are a number of significant initiatives underway. One of them, of course, is in the, on the development side and on the product management side.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

So, part of the process of better positioning our products to compete in the market to drive more organic growth. By the way, I would say to you that what's been heartening as we've gone through this, is the strength of a number of our products. Really, we just need to do a better job of putting them in the marketplace and positioning them appropriately. Part of the visibility that we have as a result of that process on competitive intelligence, I think is leading to some targeted investments in product innovation that we think are going to drive higher retention through time. Secondly, on the customer success side, we have promoted a new customer success leader.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

We have built out a centralized customer success shared service organization that we did not have previously. We have adopted a new approach to the customer success function, and will be adopting, in the second half of the year, a new customer success software platform. Again, with a goal to get our exceptional CSMs, we have really a great team of CSMs, but to enable them to add to their great customer care responsibilities, a more strategic mindset on both monitoring customer health, and also being able to engage with a longer-term view on increasing retention rates.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

We've also spent a good deal of time on the cross-functional cooperation that's necessary to ensure better customer health and, and better retention rates, and specifically, making sure that our sales organization, that our professional services organization, and that our customer support organization are working hand in hand, right? Doing the right kind of handoffs and kickoffs for moving from, you know, that sales process and that solutions consultant, creating an initial customer success plan, to building more packaged implementation services from our PSO group, to ensure more robust product adoption and, and ultimately better customer health, because you're gonna drive better business returns and ROI for customers.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Then, as I say, giving the customer success teams the tools and methodology they need to better execute strategically on and measure and manage and improve customer health and retention. That's the main focus there. Again, happy to take any other questions on that.

[Jeff Van Rhee, Equity Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum]

Yep, that's a handful. I appreciate it. Thanks for the color. All set.

[Operator]

My apologies. Just one more reminder, folks, if you'd like to ask a question, press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Jake Roberge with William Blair. Jake, go ahead.

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair]

Hey, guys. Congrats on the quarter. This is Jake [Oberge your favorite author], Jake Roberge. Just wanted to ask, on the reduced full-year guide, would you attribute it more to the general macro impacts, or are there any execution issues we should be aware of? Is there, I guess, an accelerated sunsetting of your legacy products? Just to follow up on that, given the macro, are you still active on the M&A front, with the valuations these days? Thank you.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Yeah. On the first question, this is Jack. Really, the primary driver of that is accelerated sunset asset churn, which, you know, frankly, is, it's better for us to burn that off sooner as opposed to later, because those are non-core assets. That was the primary driver of that. Of course, with that, you're gonna have, with the sunsetting of assets, you're gonna have a little bit less TSO, right? Because that is driven by new logo activity, new implementations. In terms of the perp revenue, it's really mostly about timing of some of our OEM relationships, we expect that to be temporary.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Not related to execution, and at this point, not related to the macro environment, really related more to those kind of idiosyncratic factors that I just outlined. In terms of.

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair]

Jack, sorry.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

I'm sorry. If you have a follow-up on that, happy to take it, or I can go to the M&A question.

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair]

Oh, no, yeah, you can go to the M&A question. Thank you. Sorry about that.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

No worries. On M&A, we are actively in the market. We are looking at a number of acquisition opportunities. You know, as we build out our go-to-market capabilities, of course, it starts to make some of these acquisitions more attractive because, you know, we, we are positioning ourselves, we believe, to not only drive the cost synergies that we have historically, but to better drive revenue synergies. I, you know, I, I see it in some of the recent acquisitions that we did, like BA Insight. BA, which is an enterprise search tool, where, you know, really we drove the integration of that product with more of the new Upland mindset around go-to-market. We're seeing growth rates on that product that are really strong.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

So, you know, we're gonna keep building out this capability so that we can go and do additional acquisitions, and again, not only drive margin, but continue to drive revenue growth. Now, you know, we're well positioned. We've got plenty of capital. We're known in the market. We've got a pipeline of deals, but we control timing on it. We're gonna execute at the right time. We are being purposeful and thoughtful about it. Don't feel rushed to have to get something done this quarter, but, you know, we anticipate getting back in the business of closing deals by, you know, within the next few quarters, and feel like we're well positioned for that.

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair]

Got it. That was super-

[Operator]

Sir, I'm sorry if you would let- Yes, our final question will come from Alex Sklar with Raymond James. Alex, please go ahead.

[Jonathan Macari, Research Associate at Raymond James]

Hi, gentlemen, this is Jonathan Macari on for Alex. Just one from us. I know you kind of touched on the innovation engine already, but, you know, you've had the R&D center up and running for a little over a year now. You've had a nice cadence of new product and functionality announcements. What can you tell us about how we should think about how product velocity should trend over the next year, and how should we think about monetization of those investments? Thanks.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Yeah, I think the first, and most significant way, in which we'll monetize those investments is taking this business from a, you know, -1%, -2% organic growth rate in 2023, to a positive mid-single-digit organic growth rate next year. Now, again, that's a goal. It's not guidance, and there are no guarantees, but this organization is laser-focused on the levers that can drive that growth. I think that is a game changer for this business. And we're not saying that's a ceiling, we're saying that is a target for next year. Long term, our goal there is, you know, 5%-10% organic, and 30%-35% EBITDA margins.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

I, I think that's just an absolute game changer for how the company will be viewed and valued on an ongoing basis. Then, of course, turning back on the M&A engine and doing it in the context of a business that has a working go-to-market motion and levers to pull around the Indian COE on the product side, and, and the ability to generate pipeline, and the ability to not only support any acquired field sales personnel, but also to add an inside selling capacity to the products that we acquire. A scaled inside selling capacity, where we can now plug in inside sales pods on a pretty systematic basis.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

Look, I'm not saying that, you know, everything is humming right now because we are in the process of laying this all in, but we are seeing real and solid progress operationally on creating this capability that we believe is gonna drive that growth and that return on investment. As I mentioned, there are some early green shoots, particularly around pipeline generation, that I think, you know, give us increased optimism for the future.

[Jonathan Macari, Research Associate at Raymond James]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Okay.

[Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO at Upland Software]

All right, that's our final question. Let me just thank everyone for joining the call, and we will see you after after the next quarter. We'll see you on the Q3 call. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you, Jack. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect. Have a great day, everyone.

Participants

Executives

• Jack McDonald, Chairman and CEO
• Mike Hill, CFO

Analysts

• Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair
• Jeff Van Rhee, Equity Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum
• Jonathan Macari, Research Associate at Raymond James
• Michael Rackers, Equity Research Associate at Needham