SolarWinds spinout N-able’s revenues heading in the right direction

MSP data protector N-able’s revenues for its fourth calendar 2021 quarter were $89.5 million, up 12 per cent from a year ago, with a profit of $2.1 million. That compares to a $9.94 million loss a year ago. Full 2021 revenues were $346.5 million, 14 per cent higher than a year ago, with profits of just $100,000. Still, that’s better than the year-ago $7.2 million loss.

The company was spun out of malware-stricken SolarWinds last year and we now get to see its business numbers.

What we see is a barely profitable business with relatively small but decent and growing revenues. Looking at similar companies, cloud backup provider Datto’s most recent quarter had revenues twice N-able’s at $164.3 million with a $5.7 million profit. The latest Commvault quarter saw revenues of $202.4 million with a $10 million profit; again much healthier, but it is mostly an on-premises data protector with a growing SaaS business.

John Pagliuca (left) and Tim O’Brien (right)

N-able EVP and CFO Tim O’Brien issued a statement: “We had a strong finish to the year, with our highest level of new bookings in 2021 occurring in the fourth quarter … Our trailing 12 months dollar-based net retention rate remained consistent at 110 per cent, reflecting healthy expansion among our existing MSP partners. The go-to-market and product investments that we started making in 2021 are beginning to generate dividends and will contribute to revenue acceleration throughout the year as well as margin improvement in the back half of 2022.”

The company had Q4 subscription revenue of $87.3 million, 13 per cent up on the year. It was $336.8 million for the full year, up 15 per cent.

N-able added more than 25 partners to a tech alliance programme in the year, taking total membership to 65.

On 31 December 2021, total cash and cash equivalents were $66.7 million and total debt was $338.9 million.

President and CEO John Pagliuca said “With our 2021 foundational efforts behind us, we have turned our focus squarely to elevating and accelerating our business. We are seeing progress in each of our key investment areas, which include building a multi-pronged go-to-market approach, bolstering our partner success resources, and bringing powerful and secure products to market faster.”

He thinks “industry tailwinds, such as increased IT complexity, labour scarcity, and rising cyber threats, remain as strong as ever” and that N-able has “exciting projects in the pipeline that position us well to solve our MSP partners’ pain points. As the N-able team moves forward together, we are focused on execution and on carrying the momentum we have generated into a successful 2022.”

The next quarter’s outlook is for revenues between $90.1 million and $90.6 million. Full 22 year outlook is for revenues between $384 million and $388 million, representing 11 per cent to 12 per cent year-over-year growth.