GitLab Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
June 3, 2024

There are 17 speakers on the call.

Operator

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kelsey Turcotte, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Kelsey. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you for joining us today for GitLab's Q1 fiscal year 2025 financial results conference call. GitLab's Co Founder and CEO, Sid Zibrandy and GitLab's Chief Financial Officer, Brian Robbins, will provide commentary on the quarter and guidance for the fiscal year. Before we begin, I'll cover the Safe Harbor statement. I would like to direct you to the cautionary statement regarding forward looking statements on Page 2 of our presentation and in our earnings release issued earlier today, which are both available under the Investor Relations section of our website. The presentation and earnings release include a discussion of certain risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could cause our results to differ from those expressed in any forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

Speaker 1

As is customary, the content of today's call and presentation will be governed by this language. In addition, during today's call, we will be discussing certain non GAAP financial measures. These non GAAP financial measures exclude certain unusual or non recurring items that management believes impact comparability of the periods referenced. Please refer to our earnings release and presentation materials for additional information regarding these non GAAP financial measures and the reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measure. I will now turn the call over to GitLab's Co Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Sid Cibrandy.

Speaker 1

Sid?

Speaker 2

Thank you for joining us today. We had a strong first quarter with 33% revenue growth and significant year over year margin expansion. The value customers derive from GitLab comes through not only in our top line growth, but also in our best in class dollar based net retention rate of 129%. We continue to differentiate our platform with security compliance and AI throughout the software development lifecycle and we also continue expanding our total addressable market with new use cases and personas. AI is quickly transforming the way software is delivered.

Speaker 2

With GitLab, our AI extends well beyond coding and development. Because we have the broadest platform, we uniquely enable our customers to also leverage AI for planning, security and operations. Both new customers like financial services company A and B and existing customers like NASA, Artemis, Carrefour, Indeed and the FBI understand the value of a platform that enables software development across the end to end lifecycle. It improves productivity and security without sacrificing speed. We believe the benefits and improved quality delivered by our end to end approach are unmatched in the market.

Speaker 2

A great example of this is a leading financial services company that decreased pipeline outages by 90% since deploying GitLab, and that has translated in 100 of 1,000 of dollars in savings every year. They are also leveraging our AI offering, GitLab Duo Pro, and GitLab Duo Pro has already delivered increases in productivity for this customer. We're seeing GitLab Duo adoption by customers who are excited about the benefits it's bringing to their teams. For example, a leading provider for the global communications industry purchased GitLab Duo in Q1 to help engineering teams code faster and more securely. We continue to add new capabilities to GitLab Duo.

Speaker 2

In Q1, we released GitLab Duo Chat into general availability. Chat is a conversational AI interface for GitLab Duo. It helps customers quickly understand project status, get help with planning and configuration, receive explanations of suggested code and generate tests, all without context switching. I'm excited about chat because it transforms software development by seamlessly integrating AI through a single easy to use natural language chat interface. This optimizes DevSecOps workflows and boosts productivity.

Speaker 2

We also introduced new privacy controls that enable organizations to manage sensitive data at the project group and subgroup levels. This helps reduce the security and compliance risks of AI adoption. Our next AI add on is GitLab Duo Enterprise. GitLab Duo Enterprise combines the developer focused AI features of GitLab Duo Pro with enterprise focused features to help teams collaborate faster together. Our customers are particularly excited about the security tools coming as part of GitLab Duo Enterprise, such as root cause analysis along with vulnerability explanation and resolution.

Speaker 2

In the future, GitLab Duo Enterprise will also allow customers to deploy AI models in air gapped environments. This feature will further differentiate GitLab Duo in the market. Now, I'd like to turn to security and compliance. These capabilities are core to our platform and continue to be big business drivers for us. Customers turn to GitLab because they need to integrate security earlier in the development process.

Speaker 2

For example, a major U. S. Technology company and government contractor removed 7 different point solutions when they consolidated on the GitLab platform. Now they are doing security scans 13 times faster and are seeing a 90% savings in toolchain administration. In Q1, we closed a 6 figure deal with a global financial services company, a new logo for GitLab.

Speaker 2

They were looking to improve security in the DevSecOps lifecycle and GitLab was the only option that would let them bring software composition analysis, SaaS and DaaS into a single platform. With our advanced security capabilities, the company can shift security left and address vulnerability sooner. At the same time, they are consolidating their tool chain, reducing their total cost of ownership and increasing visibility across the software supply chain. GitLab's integrated security is driving upgrades to our ultimate tier. In Q1, we continue to build on our security capabilities with our acquisition of Oxide.

Speaker 2

We acquired Oxide for their robust SaaS technology. This will help streamline vulnerability management and remediation for GitLab customers. We also acquired the intellectual property of Resilient, which will enrich our vulnerability risk data, add auto remediation capabilities, as well as runtime vulnerability reachability. Together, these acquisitions are intended to extend GitLab's detection and remediation capabilities from code through runtime. And this will help organizations resolve vulnerabilities more efficiently and quickly.

Speaker 2

We will be integrating oxide and resilience technologies into GitLab over the next several quarters. Turning to compliance, one of our big differentiators here is GitLab Dedicated, our single tenant SaaS solution, which provides customers with data isolation and residency. 1 of the largest public service departments in Europe adopted GitLab Dedicated in Q1 to help them break down silos and build a culture of collaboration across the organization's hybrid landscape while maintaining strict compliance requirements. Now I'd like to discuss our go to market strategy. As we scale past $500,000,000 and move to $1,000,000,000 in revenue, our customer profile is evolving and so are we.

Speaker 2

Customers recognize us as more than just a vendor. We are a partner. We recently won Ally Financial's Technology Operational Excellence Award for driving simplified and resilient solutions for Ally and its customers. This follows from last year when we won Ally's Velocity with Quality Award for helping Ally Financial deliver value to customers quickly. In addition, our partnerships with Google Cloud and AWS accelerate cloud migration for them, and we benefit from wider distribution.

Speaker 2

In April, GitLab received the 2024 Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year Award in the application development category for the 4th consecutive year. At Google Cloud Next, we announced our Google Console integration. This helps our customers improve developer experience and decrease context switching across GitLab and Google Cloud. We're also excited about our integration with Amazon Q. The integration gives our joint AWS and GitLab customers unified interface whether they are working in AWS or in GitLab.

Speaker 2

AWS customers using GitLab can opt to have GitLab Duo route tasks to queue and vice versa. To help us penetrate the estimated $40,000,000,000 market opportunity ahead of us, we are investing in a number of initiatives. First, we are adding more global field CTOs to help amplify our message and articulate our value to the executive suite. 2nd, we are bringing in more solution architects and also expanding our services offering to ensure post sales success. 3rd, we are increasing our global theater presence to more closely meet the needs of specific regions and markets.

Speaker 2

And 4th, we are sharpening our focus on industries with complex security and compliance requirements such as financial services. During the quarter, we closed the 2nd largest deal in GitLab history with a U. S.-based global investment banking firm. Given their success with our core capabilities, they upgraded to GitLab Ultimate for our security and compliance capabilities and significantly expanded seats. Finally, we're looking forward to next month's anticipated GitLab 17 product launch event.

Speaker 2

We invite you to join us on June 27. Registration information can be found on the GitLab website. Many innovations are planned for GitLab 17, including enhanced security scanning and governance controls and the general availability of our CICD catalog. Then we'll be taking GitLab 17 on the road as part of our DevSecOps World Tour, we then focused on business leaders and practitioners. On a personal note, during a recent routine scan, I learned that I need to again undergo treatment for osteosarcoma, the same form of cancer I was treated for in 2023.

Speaker 2

My doctor believes that this finding is part of the original lesion and that as such the disease has not metastasized. I'm working on making a full recovery. As the last time, my scope and responsibilities as GitLab's CEO and Chair remain unchanged. I'd like to thank our executive team and the Board of Directors for their support. In closing, I'm confident we will continue to win the large market opportunity in front of us.

Speaker 2

I want to thank our team members and partners for their focus on customer success and our customers for trusting us.

Speaker 3

I want

Speaker 2

to thank our shareholders for your support and I look forward with speaking with many of you this quarter. With that, I'll turn it over to Brian.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Sid, and thank you again for everyone joining us today. I am pleased with our start to FY 2025 as the team delivered strong top line growth. We also achieved a significant year over year increase in operating margin and for the first time generated positive Q1 operating and adjusted free cash flow. Our number one objective is to grow, but we continue to do that responsibly. It is clear from our results that our customers see the value of our end to end DevSecOps platform that allows them to consolidate spend, avoid vendor lock in and deliver outcomes to the business more quickly.

Speaker 4

Customers report to us that they were able to consolidate their tool chain anywhere from 3 to 20 solutions into our platform, accelerate release cycles by 7 times and even realize 70% improvements in annual savings. These outcomes move the needle for our customers in the software development life cycle, maximizing budgets and increasing their competitiveness. Turning to the numbers. 1st quarter revenue of $169,000,000 represents an increase 33% from Q1 of the prior year. Please note that our acquisition of Oxide did not contribute to Q1 revenue.

Speaker 4

As a reminder, when we guided for Q1 FY 2025, we had not completed our annual standalone selling price analysis or SSP, which determines our revenue recognition rate for upfront license revenue. As a result, we use our FY 2024 rates for FY 2025 guidance. That evaluation is now complete and had the effect of decreasing Q1 revenue approximately $1,000,000 and decreasing expected FY 2025 revenue by approximately $4,000,000 relative to guidance. Excluding the impact of the new SSP allocation, Q1 revenue was 170,000,000 dollars an increase of 34% year over year. Going forward, guidance for FY 2025 includes our updated SSP allocation.

Speaker 4

We ended our Q1 with a dollar based net retention rate or DB NRR of 129%. Q1 DB NRR was driven by a combination of seed expansion at approximately 55%, price at approximately 35% and tier at approximately 10%. Over the last 4 quarters, seed expansion has been greater than 50% of the growth in DB NRR, And we are very pleased to see customers' commitment to our platform reflected in this expanding adoption. We now have 8,976 customers with ARR of at least $5,000 an increase of approximately 21%. Consistent with previous quarters, our customers with greater than $5,000 in ARR contributed over 95% of our total ARR in Q1.

Speaker 4

In particular, we monitor performance of our larger customer cohort of $100,000 plus in ARR, where average ARR per customer continues to increase and unit economics continue to improve. This is a testament to the importance of security and compliance for these large customers. At the end of Q1 of FY 2025, we had 10 25 customers with ARR of more than $100,000 an increase of over 35% year over year. Expanding this cohort both in absolute number and total ARR is a focus of our go to market team. And as Sid mentioned, we'll continue to invest additional resources to drive momentum across these customers.

Speaker 4

This quarter total RPO grew 48% year over year to $681,000,000 while CRPO grew 34% to 436,000,000 dollars Non GAAP gross margins were 91% for the quarter. SaaS now represents over 28% of total revenue and grew 50% year over year. The team continues to identify efficiencies that allows us to maintain best in class non GAAP gross margins. Once again, we saw a year over year improvement in operating leverage. Q1 non GAAP operating loss was $3,800,000 compared to a loss of $15,000,000 in the Q1 last year.

Speaker 4

As a reminder, in this Q1, our non GAAP operating loss included a $15,000,000 investment in Summit, our global team member gathering. I'm really pleased with the team's continued focus on execution, which resulted in a non GAAP margin expansion of more than 900 basis points year over year. Cash from operating activities was $38,100,000 in the Q1 of FY 2025 compared to an $11,000,000 use of cash in operating activities in the same quarter of last year. Adjusted free cash flow was 37 point $4,000,000 in the Q1 of FY 2025 compared to an $11,200,000 use of cash in the same quarter of last year. Turning to guidance.

Speaker 4

I'd like to start with a few comments on guidance. First, as I mentioned already, guidance includes our updated SSP revenue analysis. FY 2025 revenue guidance includes the approximately $4,000,000 SSP net headwind for FY 2025 and raises in line with our Q1 top line outperformance. For the Q2 of FY 2025, we expect total revenue of $176,000,000 to $177,000,000 representing a growth rate of 26% to 27% year over year. We expect a non GAAP operating income of $10,000,000 to $11,000,000 and we expect a non GAAP net income per share of $0.09 to $0.10 assuming $167,000,000 weighted average diluted shares outstanding.

Speaker 4

For the full year FY 2025, we expect total revenue of $733,000,000 to $737,000,000 representing growth rate of approximately 26% to 27% year over year. We expect a non GAAP operating income of $34,000,000 to $38,000,000 and we expect a non GAAP net income per share of 0.34 dollars to $0.37 assuming $168,000,000 weighted average diluted shares outstanding. Separately, I'd like to provide an update on Jihu, our China joint venture. In Q1 FY 2025, non GAAP expenses related to Jihu were 3,000,000 dollars compared to $5,600,000 in Q1 of last year. Our goal remains to deconsolidate Jihu.

Speaker 4

However, we cannot predict the likelihood or timing when this may potentially occur. Thus for FY 2025 modeling purposes, we forecast approximately $14,000,000 of expenses related to Jihu compared with $18,000,000 in FY 2024. In closing, Q1 was a strong start to the year, highlighting the differentiation of our DevSecOps platform and the power of our financial model. We're excited about the introduction of AI across the entire software development lifecycle, the significant value we deliver for our customers and the large market opportunity in front of us. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon.

Speaker 4

With that, I'll turn it over to Kelis, who will moderate the Q and A.

Speaker 5

Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. And it's time for questions. We'll take our first question from Matt at RBC. Matt, please go ahead.

Speaker 5

We're requesting one question and one follow-up, please.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks, Kelsey. First of all, Sid, thoughts and prayers out to you as you continue this journey here. Certainly, you're in our thoughts and prayers. Maybe just to start with you, Sid, on the demand environment, there's obviously been a lot of volatility in, I guess, I'd say off quarter software earnings over the past couple of weeks.

Speaker 6

Can you just maybe just pull the lens back a little bit and kind of just talk about what you're seeing from an advant environment? Obviously, it looks like you

Speaker 7

had good results this quarter, but just a little bit more perspective there.

Speaker 4

Hey, Matt. Thanks for the question. This is Brian. I'll start in. There weren't any major macro changes from Q4 to Q1.

Speaker 4

Sales cycles and discounting were consistent. The macro continues to be cautious, I would say, from the procurement departments on how they're being thoughtful and what they commit to. If you get specific to GitLab though, first, if I look at new business, our first order business continues to be strong. And so that's a great indicator. And then second, I look at existing customers, and we reported the dollar based net retention rate of 129%.

Speaker 4

This is led by seat expansion followed by the price increaseincreased customer yield, and then, up tiering. And so that was better than what we modeled. You know, the cohort of 100,000 ks, which we view as a proxy for enterprise customers, grew more than 35% year over year. And so hopefully, it gives you some context on the macro and then also, you know, what we look at from GitLab specific, within the quarter.

Speaker 6

Okay. That's great, Brian. Then maybe just Paul for you. On the $4,000,000 SSP headwind you talked about, I just want to be clear. It feels like, A, that's a full year headwind, not just Q1, which I think you alluded to on

Speaker 8

the call. But I just want to

Speaker 6

make sure that my math is right because it feels like you beat by, I think, $3,000,000 and you're raising by, I think, $7,000,000 But you talked about this $4,000,000 SSP headwind. I just want to make sure I understand kind of the puts and takes to the full year. It sounded like you said you're basically just pushing the Q1 beat through, but maybe if you could just provide a bit more color around that.

Speaker 4

Yes, absolutely. And thanks for the question. The when we reported the guidance for last quarter, it was based on the 2024 SSP allocation. We completed that analysis and there was 1,000,000 impact in Q1. And so the $3,700,000 beat includes the $1,000,000 impact.

Speaker 4

The guidance we gave for the full year of 7.30 3 to 7.37 includes the $4,000,000 headwind. And so that would be, you know, additive to those numbers. So we absorb those in the numbers that we provide.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks for that question. Thanks, Matt. Next question is coming from Ryan at Barclays. Ryan, your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thanks for taking the question. Just on your incremental pricing guide you offered last quarter, you usually guide the $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 in benefit for the fiscal year. Any update to that guide? And are you seeing any differences at renewal for the additional price increase this year in this macro? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thanks, Ryan. This is Brian. We gave that range out a couple of quarters ago to help with calibrating the models as there was such a wide range on this year's revenue. Your assumptions that we gave out included in our guidance on a go forward basis, includes that.

Speaker 4

And so I'm happy to report that, you know, we're doing better than what we internally modeled. And, yeah, instead of what we internally modeled.

Speaker 6

Perfect. Appreciate that color. And just one housekeeping item. Maybe I missed it on the prepared remarks, but did you provide ultimate as a percentage of ARR? And then maybe one for Sid, love to hear about how you're thinking about the initial uptake in terms of demand for Duo Pro and maybe any early signs of demand for Duo Enterprise?

Speaker 6

Thanks.

Speaker 4

I'll do ultimate real quickly. That's 46% of total AR, up from 44% from last quarter.

Speaker 9

Thanks for that, Brian. And thanks for the question about Duo Pro and Duo Enterprise. So we're seeing the momentum there. For Duo Pro, we got some great initial results. A major America's financial services company reported 35% to 40% developer productivity as a result of using it.

Speaker 9

Got a great deal with a major APAC telecommunications company that wanted to have AI powered capabilities, not just in coding, but in all stages. And we made a sale to a major security infrastructure company. As for Duo Enterprise, the features they really like are the ones around security and root cause analysis. And the security features they like is vulnerability explanation and resolution. So they're looking forward to that.

Speaker 9

And in the future, Duo Enterprise will also allow customers to deploy AI models in air gapped environments, and a lot of our customers are looking forward

Speaker 7

to that.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Ryan. Next question goes to Jason at William Blair.

Speaker 10

Yes, thank you. Guys, I was just wondering, have you explored recently any changes to the pricing model? I know you can proceed pricing for both the self managed and the SaaS. And especially for the SaaS business where most of your peers are using some form of usage based pricing, it would seem like that could be in the cards for you guys. Just any comments on how you're thinking about pricing

Speaker 6

going forward would be great.

Speaker 9

Yeah. For the most important part, our pricing is the same, as you said, it's based on users. The value we add is we make people more productive, 10 times faster cycle time, getting more work done. On SaaS, we also charge for, for example, storage. But the big benefit in GitLab is in how we make people more productive.

Speaker 9

The, for example, the storage costs are not very high. Another indicator of that is our gross margins, like 91%. It kind of indicates that there's not a ton of compute cost that we drive down. It's making the people more efficient with things like replacing point solutions with a platform and the AI, and that's what we charge for.

Speaker 10

Okay, great. And then one quick follow-up just on the product roadmap, and maybe this is for you Sid. But as we think about this fiscal year, what would you say is your kind of top priority in terms of the kind of the products capabilities, the GitLab applications capabilities?

Speaker 9

Yes. A top focus, of course, is AI, Duo Pro, Duo Enterprise, but we also continue to invest in our, the ability of our customers to replace point solutions. Really excited about the acquisition of the 2 security companies that's going to make our security offering better. Also investing our compliance, our planning capabilities and, and, and just making it easier to replace all the other point solutions that our customers have. Currently with GitLab, our customers can replace more point solutions than any other way, but we want to make sure they can replace all their point solutions.

Speaker 9

And I think in security, we're getting pretty close, and we'll keep driving for all the other sectors, including planning and binary storage and everything else.

Speaker 10

Thank you. Best of luck with your treatment.

Speaker 9

Thanks.

Speaker 5

Next question goes to Nick from Scotiabank, please. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Awesome. Thanks guys. And Sid, best of luck. I wanted to ask a question, Brian, on the RPO. The sequential change from 4Q to 1Q was a little bit smaller than we've historically seen.

Speaker 6

And just is there anything to call out mechanically as to why that change is a little bit smaller? Was there a pull into the Q4? Are customers signing shorter duration deals? Is there more sort of renewal activity and the renewals go from 3 years to 1 year? Just anything else to call out on that RPO number and why that sequential change is a little bit smaller?

Speaker 4

Yeah. Thanks for that, Nick. We've talked about with billings and RPO, them being somewhat a little bit noisy within a quarter. You know, where I was happy with the CRPO at 34% year over year. That was in line with the revenue growth of 33%.

Speaker 4

Q4 to Q1, there is some seasonality. Q4 is our strongest quarter, and Q1 is seasonally our our lowest quarter. And so we had a real strong finish to the year, so that impacts it a little as well. But I'm pleased where we're at and the visibility that we have in the model.

Speaker 6

Awesome. Thanks. And then just a quick follow-up on the $4,000,000 headwind. Is that all related to license revenues? And if so, just any goalpost as to how we should be thinking about license versus self managed contract support for this year?

Speaker 6

Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Thanks for that. We don't break down, you know, because we don't forecast that level. We don't set sales compensation targets between, you know, self managed or, you know, ones that we're going to host. And so when we go through the SSP allocation, it's based on what we deem to deliver value when it's received versus value over the time of the license, and that's what causes a switch.

Speaker 4

And so, you know, the headwind we eventually get because we don't recognize upfront, we recognize over the period of the contract. And so the $4,000,000 that we called out is lower than what a recognition would have been last year, but we've included that in our guidance and absorb that.

Speaker 2

Great.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Nick. Next question is from Carl at UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Okay, great. Hey, Brian, you talked a little bit about the macro being reasonably stable relative to 4Q. Could we talk specifically about seat growth? Your disclosures of the seat contribution to NRR both in Q1 and 4Q would lead one to believe that seat growth is either stable or even slightly improved. Is that the correct assumption?

Speaker 4

Yeah. You know, when I look back, it seats, from a contribution to the net dollar retention rate over the last 4 quarters. It's averaged over 50%. And so that's been the number one contributor. That's both in obviously ultimate and premium.

Speaker 6

Okay. So it sounds more stable than not. Okay. And then on the contribution, the assumed contribution of Duo, Pro and Enterprise to the fiscal 2025 guidance, Brian, are you including anything in there, maybe a minimal amount, maybe just to add some color there? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Yeah, thanks for that. Like we said on previous calls, you know it's early, it takes some time. Happy with the sales process as it's going, but it's included in our guidance that we provided.

Speaker 6

Okay, got it. Congrats on the nice numbers. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Karl.

Speaker 5

Great. Our next question comes from Joel Fishbein of Truist. Joel, your line is open.

Speaker 11

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers of you. Brian,

Speaker 3

first, congrats on yes.

Speaker 5

You're breaking up a little. I don't know if there's a way to fix that. Can you hear me better now? Yes.

Speaker 11

Sid, best to you and thoughts

Speaker 3

and prayers with you. Brian, congrats on margin performance. I see you talked a lot about scaling the business here and I would love to get a little reiteration on how you're thinking about growth versus margin going forward.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thanks, Joel. We've been very consistent in our messaging that the number one goal of the company is growth, but we'll do that responsibly. If you look at sort of what we added this quarter, we added $42,000,000 of incremental revenue and that was done with an increase of $31,000,000 of incremental expense. But in that incremental expense was the one time cost summit, which was roughly about $15,000,000 And so we grew 33% quarter over quarter and we did that with good incremental profit.

Speaker 3

Great, thanks.

Speaker 12

Thanks, Joel.

Speaker 5

Great, Thanks, Joel. Our next question comes from cash from Goldman Sachs.

Speaker 12

Thank you very much. Sid, how would you

Speaker 7

describe GitLab's product competitiveness versus your leading competitor? How is that gap today versus say 6 months ago or so especially in light of the generative AI features that you've introduced with Duo, Duo Chat and also other things like Agile and Dedicated. I know it's a qualitative thing, but I just wanted to get that perspective from you. And one for you, Brian. When the effect of Duo, Agile, Dedicated price increases do kick in into full gear, what is the rough contribution that these vectors have to your reported growth in this quarter?

Speaker 7

So in other words, how much additive will be the effect of those vectors to your current reported growth? Thank you so much.

Speaker 9

Yes. Thanks for that question. I think we're, if you look at the AI features with Duo Pro where we were later than our main competitor, but I think we have a competitive offering now. If you look at Duo Enterprise, we can use what we're really strong at, namely integrating security in-depth and ops. And that leads to a very strong offering.

Speaker 9

The Omnia reports that GitLab has the most AI features available. That comes because we have the broadest platform. We can replace more point solutions for our customers, and that's really important because then they can have a faster cycle time, deprecate all those old tools and not only not have to pay for them, but they save on the integration costs as well. And because we have more in the platform and customers use more of GitLab, we also have more context to more relevant AI features. So I think that's really exciting, and I'm looking forward to all the security help we can offer our customers too with AI, and I think we're leading there.

Speaker 9

So that makes me really excited.

Speaker 4

And Kash, on your question around Duo and all the number of things that you mentioned, what's the rough contribution? You know, on the new products that we've launched, you know, it's price times quantity is the rev rec on that. And so based on the number of seats sold and what the price is that we sell that for in the given month or quarter, would be the revenue that we'd recognize that would be additive to what we currently sell today, you know, in the base business.

Speaker 7

And I'm just looking to quantify that. I appreciate the math, Brian, but, I appreciate the process, but the math behind it, how much roughly would it contribute when it all hits the P and L incremental to the reported growth because today's growth is not benefiting from those vectors, right, which is what the heart of my question.

Speaker 4

Yes, that's correct. We've included in our guidance and we haven't broken that out separately.

Speaker 5

Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Rob at Piper. Rob, go ahead.

Speaker 11

Great. Thanks for taking my question. This is Eakin on for Rob. Just one for me. I wanted to ask around how customer conversation around hiring intentions have trended specifically for developers.

Speaker 11

And are you seeing any sort of customers look to step up hiring in the second half as they invest behind the resumption of cloud migrations or any gen AI initiatives at this point? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Thanks, Ethan. As you can, there's not a report that we can run, you know, per se, and actually see what the hiring intentions are of the customer base. I would say just more broadly that there weren't major macro changes from q4 to q1, and, you know, it was fairly consistent. And then I spoke earlier a little bit about first order and then that dollar retention rate.

Speaker 4

And I think that's reflected, you know, in this, within the net dollar retention rate that seed expansion is approximately 55%.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks for the color.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you very much. Next question comes from Koji at Bank of America.

Speaker 8

Yes. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Sid, we are all rooting for you here. Couple of questions from us.

Speaker 8

First one, big picture question, maybe for Sid. So the DevSecOps world is evolving very, very quickly. And there is a lot of focus on generative AI code. But really, that's only a sliver of devsecop workflows. So the question is on what's really going on out there?

Speaker 8

What are developer teams and IT ops teams and security ops teams most focused on today that is driving demand for GitLab?

Speaker 9

Yeah, thanks for that. You're totally right. Helping people code is only part of the equation. That's helping the developers and even they don't spend most of their time coding. They spend a lot of their time, for example, interpreting issues.

Speaker 9

And that's where generative AI can help as well. And then if you produce code, you still have to secure it. And then the bar for security is coming going up. Like, you have to have a tighter security profile. You got to address things quicker.

Speaker 9

So that's where generative AI can help a lot. Super excited about all the features coming out in Duo Enterprise that help with that. And then it's also operations, keeping everything up and having AI respond faster to security incidents, most of the time augmenting people. But even with things like planning, we're we're the only platform that has enterprise agile planning completely integrated. And with AI, you can have a better forecast of when you're gonna deliver something.

Speaker 9

It helps managers with resource allocation. So we're really excited to have AI throughout the life cycle, and we think the platforms are in a great position to have more context to feed the AI better. And the broader the platform, the more point solutions you replace, the better that AI is going to work and the more it can do for you.

Speaker 8

Got it. Thank you, Sid. And a follow-up here for Brian. Just thinking about the performance in the Q1 and the guidance methodology, you just beat the Q1 guidance, the revenue guidance midpoint by 2 point 2%. If the guidance methodology is the same, is this the right way to think about upside potential?

Speaker 8

And if not, how should we be thinking about upside drivers from that? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Thanks for that, Koji. The guidance that we gave out includes the upside that we talked about in the various products that we have. And so we as I spoke earlier, we didn't break that out and are reporting on that separately.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks. Koji, just one thing to note is, with the $1,000,000 headwind, to revenue in the Q1, what you referred to as the beat would have been actually 2.7%, up from the 2.2% that you mentioned. Next question will come from Michael at Wells Fargo.

Speaker 13

Thanks. Appreciate you taking the question. Just one from me on free cash flow, 22% margin in what's generally a seasonally lighter period. So Brian, I was just hoping you can speak to the drivers of outperformance there and how should we think about seasonality or progression of free cash flow throughout the course of the coming year? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yes, absolutely, Michael. We had a very strong 4th quarter and you know, Q4 collections happen in Q1. You know, so we did better on the on the top side and then we spent less on the bottom side. And so there was some timing, not much, but there was some timing associated with that. But it's basically the strong collections based on Q4 performance and less spending.

Speaker 4

Timing was about a quarter of the total.

Speaker 13

And is it I mean, as far as on a go forward, if we look at just the change in operating income assumptions between Q4 guidance and where things sit today, is it fair for us to assume at least sort of a similar progression on free cash flow or was sort of the one time benefit something that we should more carefully contemplate within Q1? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yeah, 1Q is stronger from a cash collection standpoint because of 4Q, and so it really has some dependency on the prior quarter and so I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Great, Thank you. In the interest of time and to see if we can get everyone on, if you could limit yourself to one question, please, that'd be great. Next question is coming from Pendulum, JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 14

Great. Hey, thanks for taking the question and Sid wishing you a rapid recovery. One question for you, Brian. You said you're doing better on the pricing assumptions that is embedded in the guidance. Is there a way to understand the raise?

Speaker 14

Does that include a little bit of uptick on that assumption as well?

Speaker 4

Yes, so we broke that out like I said a couple of quarters ago to help with calibrating the models. You know, it's included in our guidance on a go forward basis. We won't be, you know, we don't break that out, and so it's better than what we modeled internally. And, yeah, we'll just guide to the full year.

Speaker 11

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Next question is from Adam at Raymond James. Go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 15

Okay. Thank you. I want to just return to the dual conversation, see if I can ask it a little bit differently. I know Brian you talked about it's early, it's going to take time. As we compare it to Microsoft developer Copilot, they had 400,000 paid scrubs that launched 2 years ago.

Speaker 15

They just announced 1,800,000 you can back into more than 100,000,000 of ARR for that platform for them. I wonder if you guys might compare and contrast that versus what we've seen in the initial launches versus Duo. Realize the different scale and GitHub, but what could stop this from being tens of millions of ARR in the next 12 to 18 months? Thanks.

Speaker 9

Thanks for the question. We're not giving out specific numbers on the adoption. Typically, we sell more to enterprises where it's more of a top down sale versus a bottoms up approach. So, it takes a little bit longer. I also think with Duo Pro, with the coding, we were later, I think with Duo Enterprise, the everything else, I think we're more on time.

Speaker 9

We have very high expectations. We do foresee the majority of impact in coming fiscal years, not this year. What we have estimated is in our guidance. But what we're very excited about is that customers see the effect of Duo in productivity and they are enterprise customers. They choose GitLab, they choose GitLab Ultimate for the security features.

Speaker 9

They also want the AI security features. So I think we got a really compelling offering there, really excited to see how that develops in the rest of the year and outer fiscal years.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks, Adam. Next question is coming from Derek at TD Cowen.

Speaker 16

Thanks. Sid, good luck with your next treatment. And for Brian, I just wanted to go back to the change in guide just to get more clarification. At midpoint, it went up by 7,000,000 dollars You're also absorbing an incremental $4,000,000 So apples to apples, seems like you're raising by $11,000,000 Just wanted to confirm that. And then it looks like a lot of that raise, at least relative to where Street was, is expected to be seen more in the back half of the year.

Speaker 16

Can you just walk us through how you're thinking about seasonal mix over the course of the year and what could drive a stronger second half?

Speaker 4

Yes, absolutely, Derek. Your math is almost cracked. And so we beat by 3,700,000 that included a $1,000,000 a headwind. And so, we raised by $7,000,000 And then if you had the additional $3,000,000 for the remaining 3 quarters of headwind for SSP, You would get to 10,000,000 total, not the 11,000,000. So, close, but it's 10,000,000 total.

Speaker 4

And the revenue, that we're expecting is ramps consistent with what the quarterly spread has been. And so Q1 seasonally is our weakness, Q4 seasonally is our strongest, and second and third quarter is relatively about the same.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Derek.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Next question coming from Jason at KeyBank.

Speaker 6

Hey, great. Thanks for fitting me in. Maybe just one for Sid. Duo Pro, still pretty new, but surprised to see the enterprise announcement in the quarter. Curious if this was already always planned to come out around this timeframe or if you were able to accelerate it and if so, why?

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 9

Yeah. Thanks for that. I think what we're seeing is that AI is not one thing. Like, it's not we have a few teams that help with AI overall, but the implementation of AI, we can frequently rely on the individual teams. So it's not that we just have an AI team.

Speaker 9

AI is going to change the whole DevSecOps lifecycle, and we're enabling our team members or people in R and D to apply AI in the individual aspect. So it's it's really cool to see, like, the AI is not just gonna help you write the line of code. It's also gonna help you describe what you coded. It's also going to help you plan for the next thing. And and for example, if you have 200 comments from customers on what you should build, it helps you kind of give you a summary.

Speaker 9

And if something goes wrong, it gives you the root cause of what actually went wrong. If there's a security warning, it helps you write the code to fix that. And in the future, it will start solving some of these security issues automatically. So I'm I'm super excited about the broadness with which we can apply AI. And I think Duo Enterprise going relatively fast after Duo Pro shows that we're able to apply AI very broadly as does the the Omnia report show.

Speaker 9

So great opportunity in the future to get a lot of our ultimate customers using AI throughout the software lifecycle.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Jason. Next call next question is from Mike Needham. Mike, your line is open.

Speaker 12

Great. Thanks for taking the question, guys. I just wanted to ask about the profitability and the raise that we have to the full year operating profit here. Just trying to size up the magnitude, can you help me think about how much of that is coming from expectation setting or spending initiatives potentially moving out? And I'd also just like to get a sense if we can marry up the raised profitability outlook with Sid's earlier comments in the prepared remarks regarding investments in field CTOs and solution architects.

Speaker 12

Is that a fiscal 2025 event or is this a little bit longer term in scope?

Speaker 9

No, we're certainly going we're already hiring these people. I'll leave it to Brian to talk about the financial impact or not, but this is this is happening. Those changes in go to market are happening this fiscal year. Brian?

Speaker 4

Yeah, that's everything as Sid said and what we included earlier is included in our financial results. You know as as you know we mentioned you know the number one objective is grow but to do that responsibly. And, you know, based on where we're at and looking out the forecast, you know, the amount of operating income that we're forecasting for the year is what we gave out as guidance.

Speaker 5

Great, Mike. Thank you for your for your question. Unfortunately, we have run out of time. So, this does conclude this afternoon's call. We appreciate your participation.

Speaker 5

You can disconnect at this time, and we'll talk to you a little later. Thank you.

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
GitLab Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00