Upland Software Inc (UPLD) 2022 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Upland Software First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) The conference call will be recorded and simultaneously webcast at investor.uplandsoftware.com, and a replay will be available there for 12 months.

By now, everyone should have access to the first quarter 2022 earnings release, which was distributed today at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. If you've not received this 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.

Thank you, and welcome to our Q1 2022 earnings call. I'm joined today by Rod Favaron, our President; and Mike Hill, our CFO. On today's call, I will start with some opening comments on our Q1 results, then Rod will provide some color around customers and product developments. And following that, Mike will provide insights on the Q1 numbers and our guidance. After that, we'll open the call up for questions.

But before we get started, Mike, could you read the safe harbor statement?

Yes. Thank you, Jack. During today's call, we will include statements that are considered forward-looking within the meanings of the securities laws. These statements are subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. A detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties are contained in our annual report on Form 10-K as periodically updated on our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q 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 first quarter and full year 2022 results -- first quarter 2022 results, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website.

Please note that we are 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.

All right. Thanks, Mike. So Q1 was a strong quarter and a great start to the new year. So here are the headlines. We beat our midpoints on revenue and adjusted EBITDA, and we also outperformed plan on operating and free cash flow.

We generated $8 million in free cash flow in the quarter, and that's after substantial acquisition expenses from the 2 acquisitions we announced in the quarter. Rod is going to speak to this later in the call, but we had a good bookings quarter. In addition to that, we announced a host of product improvements in the quarter, including major new releases for AccuRoute and Kapost and Upland mobile messaging and all of that is reflective of our increased commitment to product innovation.

In addition to that, we announced the opening of our Center of Excellence that development operation in India, which provides a cornerstone for our multi-market global product development strategy. We also closed 2 strategic and accretive acquisitions in Q1, Objectif Lune and BA Insight, further building our product library and customer base and, in particular, strengthening our document workflow product family.

And finally, we remain active in the market for additional acquisitions and strong on our outlook for the year. So with that, let me turn the call over to Rod.

Thank you, Jack. Good afternoon, everyone. I'll start on the sales side, a little bit more detail on some of Jack's comments. As Jack mentioned, Q1 was a good bookings quarter. In the quarter, we expanded relationships with 280 existing customers. 49 of those deals were major expansions. We also welcomed 120 new logos to Upland in the first quarter, including 25 major new customers. Our new customer sales were well distributed across our products and industry verticals.

We also had a good expansion quarter across our products, specifically our Upland mobile messaging product, which is our text messaging product, and Altify, our sales enablement product for account-based selling. Both had strong expansion quarters. Q1 was also a strong quarter for selling our Premier Success plans. As a reminder, our Premier Success plans are subscription services packages that give our customers high fidelity support to help them be successful.

Switching over to product. We had 9 major releases and 11 featured pack minor releases and a little bit more detail on some major accomplishments in the product innovation area. Kapost, our content operations platform, announced new functionality to support dynamic content creation processes, cross-functional collaboration and revenue team enablement. With Kapost, we continue to help our customers scale content, engage audiences with solutions from -- for the most complex B2B marketing organizations.

We delivered a major new release for Upland Mobile Messaging, our enterprise messaging product, as we move that product on to the Snowflake database, dramatically improving product performance and scalability as our customers scale with that product.

AccuRoute, our content capture and routing platform, further cemented its position as the leading bridge between customers' on-premise applications and cloud solutions. When we announced that the product has expanded into really critical integrations like electronic medical records and launched new machine learning capabilities to improve data collection and overall user experience.

FileBound, which was recognized as the gold medalist and a leader in the 2021 enterprise content management Data Quadrant Report from SoftwareReviews. We're excited about this. That product focuses on document management and workflow automation. And finally, as Jack mentioned, we opened our first R&D Center of Excellence located in India during Q1.

We've already made multiple hires for the core team and senior leadership roles. And over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, we intend to significantly scale our full-time R&D employee presence in that market, further leveraging our offshore operating model.

With that, I will turn the call over to Mike.

Well, thank you, Rod. I'll cover the financial highlights for the first quarter and our outlook for the second quarter and full year 2022. On the income statement, total revenue for the first quarter was $78.7 million, representing an increase of 6% year-over-year. Recurring revenue from subscription and support increased 4% year-over-year to $73.6 million. Professional services revenue was $3.3 million in the quarter, a 12% year-over-year increase.

Overall gross margin was 69% during the first quarter, and our product gross margin remained strong at 71% or 75% 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 $36.1 million for the first quarter or 46% of total revenue, all generally as expected.

Also, acquisition-related expenses were approximately $10.4 million in the first quarter, which were in line with plan. Our first quarter 2022 adjusted EBITDA was $23.4 million or 30% of total revenue, up from $22.8 million or 31% of total revenue for the first quarter of 2021. For the first quarter 2021 -- first quarter 2022, it is, GAAP operating cash flow was $8.2 million, and free cash flow was $8 million even with $10.4 million of acquisition-related expenses in the quarter. So we are successfully generating substantial GAAP operating cash flow and free cash flow, even after acquisition-related expenses.

We are targeting $30 million to $40 million of free flow this year in 2022, but it will be back-end weighted given the transaction and transformation costs from our 2 recent acquisitions. This ongoing free cash flow generation is in addition to our existing liquidity of approximately $190 million, comprised of the approximate $130 million of cash on our balance sheet as of March 31, 2022, plus our $60 million undrawn revolver.

As of March 31, 2022, we had outstanding net debt of approximately $397 million after factoring in cash on our balance sheet. So our net debt leverage is currently around 4.0x based on the midpoint of our 2022 adjusted EBITDA guide. I will note that the principal payments on our term debt are 1% per year or about $5.4 million per year, with the remaining balance maturing in August of 2026. The interest rate on our outstanding term debt is locked at 5.4%, making our annual cash interest payments approximately $30 million at our current debt level.

Additionally, I will point out that our term debt has no financial covenants on current borrowings. With regard to income taxes, Upland currently has approximately $366 million of total tax NOL carryforwards, and of these, we estimate that approximately $211 million will be available for utilization prior to expiration. I will note that we still expect around $5 million of cash taxes per year.

For guidance, for the first -- for the quarter ending June 30, 2022, Upland expects reported total revenue to be between $77.5 million and $81.5 million, including subscription and support revenue between $72.7 million and $76.3 million for growth in total revenue of 4% at the midpoint over the quarter ended June 30, 2021. Second quarter 2022 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $23.4 million and $25.4 million for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 31% at the midpoint. This adjusted EBITDA guide at the midpoint is an increase of 3% from the quarter ended June 30, 2021.

For the full year ending December 31, 2022, Upland expects reported total revenue to be between $313 million and $329 million including subscription and support revenue between $293.1 million and $307.5 million for growth in total revenue of 6% at the midpoint over the year ended December 31, 2021. Full year 2022 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $95 million and $103 million for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 31% at the midpoint. This adjusted EBITDA guide at the midpoint is an increase of 2% over the year ended December 31, 2021.

And with that, I'll pass the call back to Jack.

All right. Thanks, Mike. We are ready to open the call up for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is from Scott Berg with Needham.

Congrats on the quarter. I guess, first question, since Rod's on the call, we'll probably direct it his way. On the sales in the quarter, you characterized it, I guess, as good bookings. How should we think about your progress in cross-selling modules, different modules to existing customers?

I know historically, a lot of your expansions and higher net dollar retention numbers have really been driven by upsells more than cross-sells. I just wanted to get an update in terms of your opportunities in cross-sell products.

Yes. Thanks for the question. So obviously, as I mentioned, bookings were good, expansion was particularly good. Cross continues to improve. And so the cross pipeline, cross-sell pipeline, continues to grow like we wanted to and the cross-sell deal closings continue really in that same good fashion as the quarter was, I would say. The thing that stood out in the quarter that I would say better than good was expansions.

Okay. Mike, from a follow-up perspective, your adjusted EBITDA margins, at least by my math, I have them just below 30% for the first time in a really long time. It looks like all of your expense areas, at least as a percentage of revenue, were nominally higher than they have been over recent quarters.

I guess, try to help us understand a little bit what maybe drove the extra costs in the quarter and I saw what the guidance was for the rest of the year. It sounds like you're moving it up a little bit. But how should we think about the model maybe over the intermediate term in the next 12 to 24 months, the slow of 31%, 32% the right way to think about the near-term model? Or are there some opportunities to move that needle?

Yes, Scott, 31% is the way to think about it for the year, that's unchanged in our guide. As you may recall, we typically see our lowest margin, EBITDA margin, for the year, at the first quarter because of payroll taxes. And as those sort of cap out as we move through the year, our EBITDA margins move up typically seasonally throughout the calendar year. So we typically end margins at the highest, start margins at the lowest and the average is 31%.

Going forward, with additional acquisitions, we still see our back office shared service organization and G&A scale leverage. So with ongoing acquisitions, again, we're targeting $40 million of acquired revenue run rate a year. We see margins improving 50 to 100 basis points, possibly more as those cost efficiency scale. So really no changes on margins.

Our next question is from Terry Tillman with Truist.

This is Robert on for Terry. Just starting off, curious to get a rough update on headcount and whether go-to-market hiring is going to plan, specifically around the global accounts team. How is capacity there? And said differently, I think, Rod, you mentioned last quarter that their mission in life is to cross-sell. So how is life going?

Yes. So that's a good question for me. Let me start with the head count question. So not including solutions consultants, our overall sales headcount, including leadership is right at 90 people. I think that is very close to the planned number. We do have a few people that we have to replace from time to time like everybody else, but I think that's very close to what we planned. So there's a quick answer to the head count question.

On the global account side, cross-sell is an important part of that team's mission. The way to think about that team is if I'm a global account manager and I have 10 customers that add up to $10 million in revenue. We challenge those guys to bring us back more revenue than they start with. And so they have to make sure the customers are being retained, and they have to make sure they're doing expansion or same-store sales, if you will, and then they have to cross-sell. So those 3 levers add up to the outcomes we're looking for from our biggest customers.

And if you compare the global account cohort group with the overall business, they're outperforming and doing a nice job, and they had a good Q1 for that global account cohort group. So it's sometimes on a given quarter, sometimes it's stronger cross-sell, sometimes it's stronger expansion, sometimes it's stronger renewals. We like all 3 to hit at once. They don't always all hit at once, but that's how we measure that team. And we're quite happy with where they are right now in their performance relative to the overall portfolio.

That's great. And then just one more for me. Curious to get more color on the M&A pipeline, just broadly, have valuation reductions in public markets hit the private markets in a meaningful way? And if so, has there been any impact on the attractiveness of private market deals versus perhaps allocating capital to buybacks or other strategic alternatives?

Yes. Regarding acquisitions, we're in a position of strength here, and we control timing. We've got liquidity and cash flow and a strong pipeline of deals. And so we continue to monitor the market and weigh the options and we'll execute when it makes sense. We announced 2 strategic and accretive acquisitions in the first quarter. So we're off to a strong start for the year.

Regarding stock buybacks or other strategic alternatives, it's our policy to not comment on speculative transactions of any type, involving the company's securities or the presence or absence of discussions the company may have related to such transactions.

Our next question is from Jeff Van Rhee with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

This is Aaron on for Jeff. Nice quarter. First question, just curious from a macro environment perspective, if you've seen inflation, fears of recession, anything going on in Ukraine. Have you seen any meaningful impact to your business from that?

So thanks for the question. Regarding Ukraine and Russia, really no exposure there. We had a few contractors there, but nothing material, and so no real exposure. Regarding outlook, generally, as our guidance indicates. We maintain a strong outlook for the year.

Okay. And then next one, just curious, given some of the market uncertainty, everything else going on, has anything changed in your outlook on the M&A front as far as capital allocation, M&A versus operating for free cash flow?

As I mentioned a moment ago, we're in a position of strength. As it relates to M&A, we've got liquidity and we can execute when we're ready to execute. We've got a strong pipeline of deals and a shopping list that is not only financial but also thematic.

So we're going to continue to monitor the market and execute when it makes sense. And as I mentioned, we've started the year strong with 2 strategic and accretive acquisitions in the first quarter. So off to a strong start there.

And then last one, Mike, just looking at some of the expense lines, it looks like G&A was a little fatter on a non-GAAP basis this quarter. Is there anything to call out there as being different than expected? And how should we think about that modeling forward?

I think generally, G&A will probably trend down as we move through the year. Again, there are some extra things in G&A this quarter like payroll taxes that are front-end loaded generally in the calendar. But G&A, you'll probably sort of see it trending down as we move through the year.

Our next question is from Brent Thill, Jefferies.

This is Luv Sodha on for Brent Thill. Maybe the first one for Jack or Rod, on the overall demand environment that you're seeing. The last question talked about the macro stuff, I guess, in a rising rate environment, how -- could you just help us categorize the demand that you're seeing out there from your customers? And whether they have the same appetite to spend going forward.

I think one of the ways -- this is Rod by the way. One of the ways that we measure demand is what I'll call our inbound new logo pipeline. And so these are people who know our brands, know our products, they're coming to us and raising their hand and showing intent and indicating an interest in looking at one of our products. And the pipeline created in that cohort group has been very consistent month-over-month for the last 12 months.

And so I have not seen an inbound demand shift. An anecdote from Q1, we had our price increases. It was our -- I think, our best price increase quarter in a while. So customers are willing to spend a little bit more, and we do intend to continue that price increase motion as we're rolling out more price increases July 1, which we, after talking to customers, feel like the demand is there and the strategic nature of our products allow us to do that. So we are I think all the indicators from the demand side are still healthy, nothing out of the ordinary.

Got it. No, that's super helpful. I guess as a quick follow-up, could you maybe talk about the magnitude of those price increases? And is there room to do more given the higher inflationary environment that we're in?

Yes. So we actually haven't announced any numbers yet relative to magnitude, and it will be somewhat different based on product and sector. So I'd rather not get into that. What I will say is we do believe there's a bit of an opportunity for those to be larger than historical. And frankly, I think we're not alone in that. I think if you look around the sector, that's part of this inflationary reality.

Got it. And maybe one on organic growth, if I may. Could you maybe talk about that? And how should we think about the compares? Obviously, the election-related spend compares get easier in the back half of the year, and we do have a mid-term election in the U.S. coming up. So could you maybe talk about the cadence there? And how should we think about the back half of the year in terms of organic growth?

Yes. So we expect core organic growth, right, which is backing out those presidential political revenues and backing out overage charges but core business to strengthen in terms of organic growth through the year. And no change from our steady-state target of mid-single digits, low to mid-single digits on core organic growth.

In terms of what we see on the political side, the biggest impact there is the quadrennial presidential elections, right? And so while we could see some impact from the mid-terms, the bigger number comes with the presidential. Now we have had some interesting progress with some large political groups. Rod, do you want to talk to the Q1 UMM bookings around political?

Sure. Yes. Really only tangentially associated not -- obviously not associated to any sort of major presidential election by much smaller in volume and more of an ongoing commitment as opposed to just a mid-term related relationship. A customer we've had for a long time who just decided to buy a lot more. I guess this is the best way to characterize it.

So we do see sort of tangential organizations related in the political world, but we're not -- we're sort of subtracting out any of that sort of presidential peak and valley information relative to the organic growth numbers.

Our next question is from Jake Roberge from William Blair.

Congrats on a great quarter. So just want to take a step back and look at 2021. There were a number of headwinds impacting the business, like pipeline issues caused by the sales restructuring and the tough comps related to the 2020 election.

But when I look at the model today, am I right in thinking that the trough was likely in Q3 and Q4 of last year, and that these issues should largely be behind the business and we can get back to that kind of steady cadence of low to mid-single-digit organic growth and margin expansion. And so just trying to think about how we move throughout the year.

Yes. So I mean core organic growth for 2021 came in at around 4%, right? Core organic, excluding the presidential political revenues, excluding overage charges and obviously, any sunsetted assets. And as we look at this year, we see core organic growth strengthening through the year.

As Mike has talked about before, we've got an average contract duration of 18 months. So you get a little bit of a delayed revenue impact on any pandemic-related churn. But directionally here, we see core organic growth improving as we move through the year.

Great. And then just back to the GAMs that we talked about earlier. So you've had those now in place for a few quarters. I'm just kind of curious if you've seen any changes to your strategic relationships with larger customers, where you can really show the whole spread of Upland product suite? And are we at a place where Upland is really that trusted partner of these enterprises where the GAMs can start driving more cross-sell and new products that they've -- with those new products that they've acquired over the last few years.

Yes. I think we're getting there. I think that most of these global account folks have been in place now 4 quarters or so. And it takes a while, as you know, walking into a very big customer to get to know everybody and get into the senior leadership, make sure you've got the right level of credibility. Taking care of them with their current products, selling them more the same and crossing in.

And last year, in the back half, we saw, I would say, the first solid cross-sell successes out of that motion. Keeping in mind those are probably sales cycles that we start. We go to the customer and say, "Hey, we have this other cool stuff, would you like it?" As opposed to the customers already decided they want it and they called us. So sometimes those sales cycles take a little bit longer. But once the customer's engaged, we've got existing contracts, it's easier to get through the sales cycle. So we're definitely seeing that.

Like I said, the global account team is one. One, make sure the customer's retained and happy; two, sell them more of the same; and three, sell something new. And there -- like we have talked about, but this might be worth a reminder, they're organized by industry vertical. And we have isolated which part of our library of products fits better within which vertical.

So they know which of the products to focus on cross-selling and which products go together, which is our highest probability of winning and just being efficient with that motion. So that's exactly what they're doing. You've described it, and I think their relationships get deeper every quarter.

The last question comes from Alex Sklar from Raymond James.

Jack, you hired a new Chief Product Officer last year. Now you've got the center of excellence coming online and the product release cadence definitely seems to have been up. Can you just give us an update on changes that have occurred within that part of the organization? And then I'm curious if there's any margin impact from the Center of Excellence shift.

Yes. So we did bring on a new Chief Product Officer, and as you rightly point out, the pace of product innovation has increased, and Rod went through a number of those earlier in the call. So we're really pleased with the alignment and the level of execution that we've seen. We're also excited about the center of excellence in terms of really providing a cornerstone for our multi-market global R&D capability.

In terms of margin impact, nothing outside of what's already contemplated in our current outlook. We think it's going to be an efficient investment. And as it is brought online, we'll be able to start transferring cost from other parts of the organization to that center of excellence. So we think we're going to get a net pickup in productive capacity while managing any change in cost. So there you go.

Okay. Perfect. And Rod, I guess, we talked a lot about the cross-sell and expansion. I wanted to ask about top of funnel pipeline creation, particularly as it relates to the new logo opportunity, any color on the growth there relative to last year given some of the marketing investments you've made?

Yes. I think top of funnel is pretty consistent now. We've gotten a lot better at sort of the ICPs by product. So we're better at kind of spending the marketing dollar to get the right inbound lead flow, with the right targeted lead flow, and the team is converting. So yes, I would say that I'm quite comfortable with where the product -- where the pipeline is now and how it continues to evolve. So sort of not new news the last couple of quarters, we're happy with how it's proceeding.

I'll now pass the call back over to Jack for any last comments.

All right. Well, thank you all for joining, and we will see you on the next earnings call.

That concludes the Upland Software First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.