Instructure Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:INST) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Instructure Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:INST) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 20, 2024
Instructure Holdings, Inc. reports earnings inline with expectations. Reported EPS is $0.23 EPS, expectations were $0.23. Instructure Holdings, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Instructure's fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings call. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker April Scee, Investor Relations. April, please go ahead.
April Scee: Good afternoon, and welcome to Instructure's fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings call. We will be discussing the results announced in our press release issued after the market closed today. With me are Instructure's Chief Executive Officer, Steve Daly; and Chief Financial Officer, Peter Walker. Before we begin I'd like to remind you that today's conference call will include forward-looking statements based on the company's current expectations. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties and our actual results may differ materially. For discussion of factors that could affect our future financial results and business, please refer to the disclosure in today's earnings release and our annual report on Form 10-K and other reports and filings we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
All of our statements are made as of today based on information available to us today and except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update any such statements. During the call, we will also refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. You can find a reconciliation of our GAAP to non-GAAP measures included in our press release, which is posted to the Investor Relations section of our website. All of the non-revenue financial measures we discuss today are non-GAAP unless we state that is a GAAP measure. With that, let me turn the call over to Steve.
Steve Daly: Thank you, April, and thank you all for joining us for our fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings conference call. With the successful close of Parchment acquisition in early February, I'm also delighted to extend a warm welcome to our newest team members. Parchment will maintain separate operations in 2024 as we align go-to-market strategies and resources to ensure a seamless transition for our customers. In the interim, we are extremely excited to begin executing the opportunities Parchment offers for driving growth and fostering innovation. I'd like to begin today's earnings call by reflecting on the key milestones and achievements that shaped Instructure's journey in 2023 and set the stage for our future growth.
We continued to strengthen our executive leadership team, bringing in four new leaders, each with more than two decades of experience leading scaled organizations, President and COO, Chris ball, to unite our go to market and accelerate our platform and cross-sell efforts; CFO, Peter Walker, to elevate our public market expertise; CTO, Michael Lysaght, to expand our web scale technology platform; and Chief Customer Experience Officer, Rachel Orston, to grow our customer success programs efficiently and deepen our strategic relationships with our customers. We also continue to innovate across our platform, including developing artificial intelligence solutions with our customers that we believe are safe, cost-effective, and can provide immediate value.
Several of our AI solutions entered beta in Q4, and feedback has been positive as we continue to refine where investments will have the highest impact for teachers, students, and leaders. We further strengthened our competitive moat and amplified the power of network effects ending 2023 with more than 8,000 customers up roughly 9% year over year as we continue to win important new logos. More than 900 partners, up nearly 20% year over year, as other edtech providers recognize the power of our massive customer base and over 2 million Instructure community members, up nearly 20% year over year, further enhancing a feedback loop to drive innovation, product development, and user engagement. We continue to expand our leading market share position in both higher education and K-12 according to edutechnica and listed tech data.
We executed our M&A strategy to expand our served markets to gain access to new budgets and buyers and accelerate our roadmap serving the credentials market through the acquisition of Parchment. We published our inaugural environmental, social, and governance report live now on our website, highlighting our commitment to ESG principles and our dedication to fostering a sustainable future that delivers enduring value for all stakeholders. We surpassed the long-term margin targets we established in 2021, demonstrating best-in-class operational efficiency and financial discipline. And overall, we continue to execute on the promises we made when we IPO'd, demonstrating unrelenting dedication to our mission and highlighting the strength of our model.
We could not be more pleased with this progress and the opportunity that we have heading into 2024 and beyond. I will now provide a high-level review of the fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 results, discuss the drivers of these results, and outline our 2024 priorities. Peter will then detail our results and provide guidance for the first quarter and full year 2024. In the fourth quarter, the company delivered $135.4 million in revenue, up 8.5% year over year, including subscription growth of 9.5%. At the same time, we drove 270 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to 41.7% ahead of our long-term target and demonstrating the leverage we have in our business model. Continued exceptional results are driven by our increasing competitive advantage from our comprehensive platform strategy, strong execution, and the formidable cash flow we generate and reinvest behind high growth initiatives.
From a macro perspective, our end markets remain resilient and durable. As we mentioned last quarter, we continued to see an elongation of sales cycles in higher education markets around the world. This is temporarily impacting growth, but in the long term, we believe our customers have an opportunity to educate more students by serving nontraditional learners, and they're looking to us to help fill this need. This long-term trend toward nontraditional learning is expected to significantly expand our available market and result in accelerating growth in higher education in the years to come. K-12 markets continue to be resilient as stimulus funding is available this buying season. We have seen increased interest in our edtech management solutions, anchored by our learning platform and easy soft acquisitions as districts actively evaluate their software investments and demand positive outcomes from them.
Our suite of solutions and key position in the classroom will continue to drive durable growth in this market segment. Now, I will share highlights from the quarter including four key drivers. Key competitive wins and new logo acquisitions, continued progress driving cross-sell and increasing take rates of our platform offerings, the expansion of our platform strategy, and how we continue to drive increased operational efficiency for us. We continue to bring in important new logos, winning more than our fair share of competitive bake-offs due to the breadth and strength of our portfolio offerings. As a result, we've been able to continue driving growth. During the quarter, we achieved a significant new logo win with George Mason University, the largest public university in Virginia, renowned for its dedication to educational modernization.
This competitive takeaway followed a rigorous RFP process and underscores the positive network effects and structure derives from focusing on the lifelong learning journey; in structures, established presence in other, Virginia, Maryland, DC institutions and the high percentage of GMU students and professors already familiar with Canvas, help secure the win. Internationally, we continue to replace outdated legacy systems with our cutting edge platform during the quarter, including our win with the University of Manchester, the UK's largest physical university, ranked in the top 50 globally for academics. Our ability to offer the University a comprehensive platform solution that could position them as a leader in flexible lifelong learning, enabled us to displace a 10-plus year relationship with an entrenched competitor.
This win also illustrated how we are landing larger, in this case with a full-platform sale. This win will also be a lighthouse for other universities in the region given their size and reputation. Second, we continue to drive growth with existing customers. During the quarter, we saw 49% year-over-year increase in cross-sell bookings. We estimate that excluding Parchment, cross-sell opportunities could reach $1 billion in our existing customer base alone. Instructure is well positioned to cross-sell additional platform modules into our huge installed base of 8,000-plus global customers since 90% of instructional workflows are facilitated by an LMS. During the quarter, we won the largest higher education credential deals in our history with the Louisiana Board of Regents, which represents the entire public university system in Louisiana.
This system includes 31 campuses across four university systems. Their purchase of a unified digital credentialing contract aligns with their target of having 60% of all working age adults in Louisiana hold a degree or higher value credential by 2030. The win showcases our strengths in serving nontraditional learning and reflects a broad industry trend toward credentialing with global enterprises prioritizing skills proficiency and easing degree requirements for some roles. Although this is an Instructure credentials deal, it also helps validate the meaningful Parchment opportunity we see ahead. We also had a significant K-12 win with Cabarrus County Schools in North Carolina. This long time Canvas customer began evaluating LearnPlatform during the first half of 2023 and chosen structure during the quarter to help them comply with edtech and data privacy legislation from the state of North Carolina.
We are able to win with Cabarrus due to a tailored approach that helps streamline their compliance with North Carolina state legislation. This win be a pivotal reference for other North Carolina schools as each addresses the new legislation over the next few months. Third, the power of our platform strategy continued to progress in Q4 through acquisition, partnerships, and innovation. Our acquisition of Parchment was announced in Q4 and closed at the beginning of February, bolstering our Instructure learning platform scale and reach as we engage learners throughout their lifelong learning journey. Our combined solutions will facilitate evidence of learning and streamline the educational process for educators and learners during key transitions.
In addition to accelerating our strategy to reach nontraditional learners, Parchment's relationships with new buyers also bring fresh opportunities into our traditional customer base with an estimated $2 billion expansion of our total addressable market and a high-quality revenue stream with significant growth potential. As mentioned earlier, our partner ecosystem continues to grow to more than 900 partners at the end of 2023, up nearly 20% year over year. And it is a key differentiator for us in the selling process. Our recent case study with Clemson University and Praxis AI virtual tutor demonstrates the power of the Instructure learning platform ecosystem to bring new technologies like AI to our customers quickly and safely. We continue to expand our platform capabilities through organic innovation, including the launch of AI-based capabilities to select customers during the second half of the year that help with course in content creation, semantic search, and natural language driven learning analytics.
We also had a big win in K-12 during the quarter with a prominent nonprofit organization that needed to replace their homegrown solution with a more adaptable, comprehensive platform that could enhance and accelerate their ability to support accessibility, enable customization, integrate important third-party applications and modernize assessment. Simply put, Instructure's learning platform enabled them to innovate on Canvas through integrations and development, putting IN structure at the core of teaching and learning across our schools. And finally, our results this quarter once again demonstrated our ability to drive operating leverage in the business. We've delivered best-in-class margins and strong cash flow conversion, which Peter will discuss in more detail shortly.
With adjusted gross margin approaching 80% and adjusted EBITDA margins exceeding 40%, Our free cash flow generation should enable us to continue investing both organically and through M&A to drive long-term durable growth. As we look ahead to 2024 and beyond, we have unwavering confidence that the Instructure learning platform's unique advantages address the intricate challenges posed by today's educational landscape. Our strategic focus will remain centered on several key growth pillars. First, harness our enhanced go-to-market function to propel platform growth and foster cross-selling opportunities; second, accelerate our efforts to displace legacy technology in international markets; third, assist new and existing customers to meet the needs of nontraditional learners; fourth, leverage our platform technology to create new revenue opportunities and further embed Instructure as critical infrastructure for teaching and learning; and finally, remain at the forefront of AI and other innovations to drive student success, both inside and outside the classroom.
Deploying these strategies, we believe we will increase our moat within edtech ecosystem and help ensure durable growth across all segments. In summary, I am confident and optimistic about our business as we head into 2024 and beyond. We will talk much more about our roadmap and long-term financial model during our March 12th Investor Day, and we hope you will join us for this discussion. I will now turn the call over to Peter to talk about our financial results and guidance.
Peter Walker: Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. Before discussing detailed financial results, I'd like to point out that in addition to our GAAP results, I'll be discussing certain non-GAAP results. Our GAAP financial results, along with the reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results can be found in our earnings release, which is posted in the Investor Relations section of our website. During 2023, we set a new company record for annual revenues of $530.2 million. This was an 11.6% increase over 2022, which was impacted by a currency headwind of 80 basis points. We're very proud of these results, which we deliver due to continued share gain as the platform of choice for institutions around the world. We also achieved a new company record for adjusted EBITDA of $214.2 million, a 19.3% increase over 2022.
We expanded adjusted EBITDA margin 270 basis points, delivering a full year 2023 adjusted EBITDA margin of 40.4%. 2023 adjusted unlevered free cash flow was $225.5 million, a 29.9% increase over 2022. This exceeded our expectations, partially driven by approximately $12 million of early collections related to 2024. Turning now to Q4, we continued to deliver a combination of strong revenue growth and best-in-class margins. As Steve mentioned, we generated fourth-quarter 2023 total revenue of $135.4 million. This was an 8.5% increase year over year, impacted by a minor foreign currency headwind. Subscription and support revenue accounted for 93% of our fourth-quarter revenues at $125.4 million, up 9.5% year over year, which was impacted by a 30-basis-point headwind from currency.
Professional services and other revenue accounted for 7% of our fourth-quarter revenue of $10 million, down 1.7% year over year, which was impacted by 10 basis points of currency headwinds. The decline was primarily driven by lower international services revenue as we evolve our channel distribution and international growth markets. Deferred revenue at the end of fourth quarter was $302.7 million, up 4.6% year over year. Remaining performance obligations or RPO at the end of the fourth quarter were $833.5 million, up 10% year over year. And we expect to recognize revenue on approximately 75% of our RPO over the next 24 months. The higher RPO growth rate is driven by deals with later start dates, will benefit future billings and revenue. In discussing the remainder of the income statement, please note that unless otherwise stated, all references to our expenses, operating results, and share counts are on a non-GAAP basis.
Our gross margin profile remains very strong given our efficient cloud architecture and our flexible support structure of the scales to meet customer demand. In the fourth quarter, our gross profit was $105.7 million, representing a gross margin of 78.1%, up 60 basis points year over year. Our operating leverage in the business remained strong, allowing us to continue expanding margin as we scale. Total operating expenses were $50.3 million, approximately the same as prior year. Operating expenses as a percent of revenue were 37.2%, an improvement of 310 basis points over prior year. Non-GAAP operating income for the fourth quarter was $55.4 million, resulting in a 40.9% operating margin, an improvement of 360 basis points over prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $56.5 million, resulting in a 41.7% adjusted EBITDA margin, an improvement of 270 basis points over prior year.
These results demonstrate the power and efficiency of our model. Non-GAAP net income in the fourth quarter was $33.2 million or non-GAAP net income of $0.23 per share compared to $28.4 million or $0.2 per share a year ago. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement, we ended the fourth quarter with $344.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash. This is an increase of $153.9 million over prior year. Our strong cash generation is driven by our favorable billing terms and low capital expenditures. We ended the year with net leverage of 0.7 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA, a full point lower than year end 2022. Operating cash flow in the fourth quarter was $36.7 million compared to $17 million in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Free cash flow was $35.5 million in the fourth quarter compared to $15.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Our adjusted unlevered free cash flow was $51.3 million in the fourth quarter compared to $29.3 million in the fourth quarter of '22. As Steve mentioned, we closed our acquisition of Parchment. Parchment is a profitable company with high-quality recurring revenue and strong cash flow conversion. As we have consistently communicated, M&A is an important part of our strategy to drive long-term durable growth. We have a strong track record of successfully integrating acquired companies completing six integrations in the last four years, and we have confidence we'll execute similarly with Parchment. We financed the acquisition with cash and incremental debt of $685 million under our existing credit facility.
Our net leverage ratio at year end 2024 is expected to be approximately 3.4 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA. We expect to delever rapidly as we continue to grow adjusted EBITDA and generate cash flow. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged since our IPO, investing in organic revenue growth, pursuing M&A, and maintaining a healthy balance sheet. I will conclude the call by providing guidance for Q1 and for full year 2024. We have provided additional guidance details in our earnings press release. Given the timing of when Parchment closed, our first-quarter 2024 guidance includes two months of Parchment's results, and our full-year guidance includes 11 months of Parchment's results. For the first quarter of 2024, we expect revenue in the range of $153.8 million to $154.8 million, a growth rate of 19.8% at the midpoint.
We expected adjusted EBITDA in the range of $57.3 million to $58.3 million representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 37.4% at the midpoint. For full year 2024, we expect revenue in the range of $655 million to $665 million or a growth rate of 24.5% at the midpoint. It's important to note that pro forma annual recurring revenue for the combined Instructure and Parchment business grew in the high single digits 2022 to 2023; and we expect similar high single digit growth 2023 to 2024. We view annual recurring revenue as the best predictor of future revenue. We expect full year adjusted EBITDA in the range of $266.5 million to $271.5 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 40.8% at midpoint, expanding margins by 40 basis points year over year.
We expect full year adjusted unlevered free cash flow in the range of $259.5 million to $264.5 million, a growth rate of 16% at the midpoint. This growth rate is 28.3% when adjusted for the $12 million of collections in 2023 related to 2024 that I mentioned earlier. We expect the seasonality of 2024 adjusted unlevered free cash flow to be slightly different than prior years due to the acquisition of Parchment. The first half of 2024 should be 4% higher and the second half of 2024 should be 4% lower when compared to 2023 patterns. As Steve mentioned, we hope all of you will join us at our inaugural Investor Day on March 12. We'll update you on the future of our business and share new midterm financial targets. That concludes our prepared remarks.
At this time, operator, please open the line for questions.
See also 25 Most Popular Email Newsletters in the US in 2024 and 25 Best Whiskeys in the World in 2024.
To continue reading the Q&A session, please click here.
