AvidXchange Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVDX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Joel Wilhite: Yes. So first of all, I’m glad you caught the pun. Let’s make sure our analysts stay in their toes. So good job there. The second part of the question related to kind of the, I’d say, the resiliency of the middle market and kind of the verticals that we’re in. I don’t think there’s much with the vertical element of it. It’s just, as I highlighted through my commentary, middle market customers are just very different than small business customers. These are substantial customers that have built out finance teams, accounts payable teams, they have longevity in their business, they have scale. And I think when you have scale and longevity, it allows you to really navigate through a down market more effectively. You have more levers to pull.

You typically have access to different financing levers that a small business does. And so I think they operate very differently and the one thing I’ll say is that we’ve been at this a while, and so we have quite a bit of history of operating through past cycles. And I think this cycle is no different and kind of the results we’re seeing are kind of what we expected to see with the resiliency of our middle market customer base and how they’ve — the same similar sets of customers have operated through past cycles. So we’re really encouraged by that. And I think it really highlights — I’ve been talking about it since our IPO in an upmarket, maybe it’s harder to tell the difference. But when you get into a choppier market, I think it’s really distinguish the differences between middle market and small business.

Andrew Bauch: Got it. And nice to see growth really kind of get back to that 20% algorithm that you guys have been calling out for in the medium term, albeit a considerable piece attributable to float. Just thinking about as we head into 2024, I know that fourth quarter implies a step down in growth. But with the AppFolio political in 2024, it seems like all the building blocks are in place for you guys to reaccelerate back to that medium-term algorithm. So I just want to get your confidence around that. And correct me if I’m wrong or highlight any points that we should be thinking about?

Michael Praeger: Yes. Perfect. And let me just jump in some of those business commentary and Joe will probably follow up as well. So yes, you hit the nail on the head. We’re super confident related to kind of what we laid out at Investor Day. And I would think for next year, kind of — there’s 5 core things that kind of at least I look at that gives me that confidence. And the first one is where we started was top of sales, organic sales activity for top of funnel. That’s a good barometer of what gets — goes through kind of sell-through that shows up in our total sales over time. The second one is certainly, the new payment modalities that we’re rolling out, Joel kind of highlighted earlier in the commentary, that’s one of the components of our increase in take rate.

And we expect those new payment modalities to continue. Third is what we’re just talking about with Invoice Accelerator 2.0. Now we’ll be in the market for the full year next year as kind of — as we’ll kind of slowly ramp that over the course of the year. And then we have the new partnerships. And certainly, we have a number of those, but AppFolio is one of those. And then the last piece, #5 is political. And certainly, both the political piece back. And it’s probably anybody’s guess on how that — the confusion in the current political cycle will impact us, but we think we’re positioned really well there. Joel, you may add some additional comments.

Joel Wilhite: Yes. The only thing I would add is we’re really pleased with the Q3 results, see strength in the business. We’re excited about the long-term opportunity. It’s important to remember that we’re in the middle of some really kind of choppy environment, I think, is the word that we view spending moderation on the part of our buyers. And so certainly, we’re not giving guidance now for ’24. We’ll do that in February and update you guys on what we see. We need to finish the year strong, but we’re really really pleased with the results of the business in Q3 and excited about the future.

Operator: Our next question will come from Bryan Keane with Deutsche Bank.

Bryan Keane: Mike, I want to ask you one of your peers in the B2B payments landscape called out some caution in electronic payment adoption, given the higher costs associated with payments like VC or instant transfer and an economic slowdown. Do you see that in the mid-market? Or is that an SMB thing?