Cyber Firm Rubrik Gains After First Earnings Beat Estimates

(Bloomberg) -- Shares of the cybersecurity firm Rubrik Inc. rose in late trading on Tuesday after its inaugural earnings results exceeded Wall Street’s expectations.

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The Palo Alto, California-based company that publicly listed less than two months ago posted revenue of $187.3 in the fiscal first quarter, above the $171.5 million average of analysts’ estimates and up 38% from a year earlier. Annual recurring revenue from subscriptions also beat forecasts. After initially gaining as much as 10%, the company’s shares were up about 3% at 5 p.m. in New York after-hours trading.

Rubrik said it expects to post revenue of $810 million to $824 million for the fiscal year and as much as $997 million in annual recurring revenue from subscriptions, both of which top analysts’ estimates.

The company projects revenue in the current period ending in July of $195 million to $197 million; the average of analysts’ estimates was $195 million.

Rubrik went public at a volatile time for cybersecurity companies. While high-profile, large-scale cyberattacks have been on the rise, customers are also tightening their belts, reining in spending and consolidating their vendors. Cyber companies including Palo Alto Networks Inc. and Fortinet Inc. have both issued downbeat forecasts amid a slowdown in enterprise sales. CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. bucked the trend last week, delivering a first-quarter earnings beat.

Rubrik, which protects companies’ data across cloud and software-as-a-service operations, became the second enterprise software startup in the past two years to launch a substantial US IPO when it listed in New York in April. It rode a wave of excitement over a rebound in the IPO market, posting orders for its April offering that were 20-fold the 23.5 million shares it had on offer.

Wells Fargo analysts said they had expected Rubrik to “deliver one of the few ‘beat and raise’ performances” in the first-quarter earnings cycle despite “mediocre performances” from rivals.

The recent cyberattack against UnitedHealth Group Inc. and the hacking campaign targeting Snowflake Inc. customers have underscored the rising demand for Rubrik’s services, Wells Fargo analyst Andrew Nowinski said. “All these big breaches speak to the need for cyber resilience,” he said. “That’s exactly what Rubrik provides.”

In 2021, Microsoft made an investment in Rubrik that valued the company at about $4 billion. Rubrik committed to spending $220 million over 10 years on Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform Azure, which it planned to use for data security and cloud services, filings show.

Rubrik was founded in 2013 and released its first product in 2016. The company said in April that it had more than 6,100 customers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc., Home Depot and PepsiCo Inc. It also works with governments and universities.

(Updates with additional forecase data from Rubrik starting in third paragraph.)

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