CrowdStrike CEO: ‘AWS Has Been A Really Fantastic Partner’

CrowdStrike has seen 75 percent annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth from business transacted through its AWS partnership in the quarter ended April 30 as compared to just a quarter earlier, CEO George Kurtz said.

CrowdStrike has seen massive growth in its AWS partnership as customers look to secure cloud workloads and endpoints that reside on their corporate network, said CEO George Kurtz.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based endpoint security vendor has witnessed a 75 percent increase in annual recurring revenue (ARR) from business transacted through the AWS partnership in the quarter ended April 30 as compared to the quarter ended Jan. 31, according to Kurtz.

“AWS has been a really fantastic partner,” Kurtz told investors Tuesday. “You can see the results. They really remove a lot of the friction in the sales process. We’re excited about that and look forward to continuing that in the future.”

[Related: CrowdStrike CEO: Partners Coming To Us As Symantec ‘Abandons’ Many Customers]

CrowdStrike has similarly seen a significant increase in demand from its partnerships beyond AWS as customers desperately look for ways to protect their remote workforce, according to Kurtz. This has contributed to the strength of CrowdStrike’s pipeline, Kurtz said, with accepted deal registrations from partners increasing by more than 200 percent on a year-over-year basis in the quarter ended April 30.

“Our view has always been to have bigger, deeper partners where we can spend more time and invest more dollars and effort,” Kurtz said. “We think that is a much better program than having many partners that aren’t necessarily moving the needle for us.”

The company opened up its platform a number of years ago and is now up to 11 high-quality, vetted partners, Kurtz said. Agents are typically a pain point for clients, and Kurtz said these partnerships can help customers reduce the number of agents they need to have in place.

Going forward, Kurtz said CrowdStrike would like to develop partnerships that results in making apps available in its store around patch management, whitelisting and operational technology (OT).

“It’s been a real strategic weapon for us because none of our competitors have a store quite like that, and people love the flexibility that we’re offering them,” Kurtz said. “Allowing that flexibility to our customers really saves them a lot of time and money in their operational overhead.”

Revenue for the quarter ended April 30 skyrocketed to $178.1 million, up 85.3 percent from $96.1 million a year earlier. That crushed Seeking Alpha’s estimate of $165.4 million. Seventy-three percent of the company’s sales in the quarter came from the United States, according to Chief Financial Officer Burt Podbere.

The company’s net loss improved to $19.2 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, which is 26 percent better than the net loss of $26 million, or $0.55 per diluted share, last year. On a non-GAAP basis, the company recorded net income of $4.5 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, up from a net loss of $22.1 million, or $0.55 per diluted share, the year prior. That beat Seeking Alpha’s non-GAAP net loss estimate of $0.06 per share.

CrowdStrike’s stock soared $7.70 (8.35 percent) to $99.95 in after-hours trading Tuesday. That’s the highest CrowdStrike’s stock has ever traded since the company went public in June 2019.

Subscription revenue for the quarter jumped to $162.2 million, up 88.7 percent from $85.9 million a year earlier. And professional services revenue for the quarter soared to $15.9 million, up 57.2 percent from $10.1 million last year.

For the quarter ending July 31, CrowdStrike is projecting a net loss of between $0.7 million and $3.8 million, or $0.00 to $0.02 per share, on revenue of between $185.8 million and $190.3 million.