JFrog Ltd. (NASDAQ:FROG) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Shlomi Ben Haim: Thanks, Koji. Specifically on security, it’s a known thing for all sizes of companies. Software supply chain security is being changed, not only consolidated, but being changed because of the threat that is coming from the runtime environment in which you have binary stresses only. So the JFrog Advanced Security, the JFrog Curation and Xray are covering this need for the SMB as well. Now, all types of customers, all four pilot customers and I’m not speaking about really small developer jobs, but the SMB for sure are looking for solutions that provide a comprehensive coverage over the software supply chain. And this is what the JFrog Security solution is attract by.

Koji Ikeda: Thanks guys. Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mike Cikos with Needham. Please go ahead.

Mike Cikos: Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions here. And I’ll jump on the bandwagon here, since we’re all asking about SaaS and cloud. Just to punctuate that point that we were speaking about with Koji, but I want to make sure one of the things we’re getting from clients here is you delivered the 47% growth in Q1. We’re reiterating the mid-40s for the full year, and I think what I’m getting from folks is the idea that, hey, it’s a skinny upside to mid-40s i.e. like, it doesn’t leave you a lot of wiggle room. And Ed, if I could just go back to your earlier comment, it sounds like the mid-40s that you’ve guided to for the years based on commitments, right? So in the context of that visibility, that mid-40s is “in hand, if you will” and then the consumption is really the go get to drive upside to that. Is that a fair characterization?

Ed Grabscheid: Yes. Thanks for the question, Mike. So first of all, our guidance suggests that our pipeline would support the mid-40s and that is based on consumption. Secondly, based on the, I’m sorry, commitments, the secondly, usage would be a driver of anything above that mid-40s growth, any acceleration beyond that would be migrations. Although we don’t anticipate anything from a migrations perspective to pick up from what we saw at the levels of 2023.

Shlomi Ben Haim: And if I may, Mike. sorry, just one more sentence about that. Well, listen, we started 2023 with the same volatility and the same hesitation in the market. People on the first quarter are far more cautious about their budget. They are planning; they are not yet executing big migration projects are not even being discussed at this point. They want to stabilize their expenses and then to start here. And exactly as it happened in 2023 and as we predicted and finished the year with a big hype on the cloud [ph] goal, this is what we will see here this year. The market is still not out of the wood and customers are looking at cloud expansion and cloud spending with the magnifier. So Q1 is very much aligned. We even exceeded our guidance. It’s very much aligned with our targets. But also, if you look at the dollar base, it’s a big success among our portfolio.

Mike Cikos: Understood. Thank you for that. And then just a follow up here. I think transparently, a little bit of the head scratching outside of your purview is just on the comment around the digestion in response to Sanjit’s earlier question. So I just like to get a sense that digestion, was that anticipated? And then the follow up is, has that been more front-end loaded? Was it back-end loaded to Q1, has there been any change in behavior in the interim? Again, to give you some sort of confidence that those projects that people are looking at are going to start coming online in the second half of this year.

Ed Grabscheid: Yes, this was not a head scratcher for us. This was something to be expected. The customer behavior and what we see in terms of seasonality there is typically seasonably weaker in Q1, as budget decisions are being made, new software development projects are being determined, and that typically will scale through and grow throughout the course of the year. And this is the trend that we’re seeing.

Mike Cikos: Got it. Okay. Thank you for calling that out. I really do appreciate it. I’ll turn it over to my colleagues.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Jason Ader with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Jason Ader: Yes, thank you. Good afternoon, guys. I wanted to ask about security, Shalomi. Maybe talk about pipeline build for security and what you guys are seeing out there on the ground with the sales reps? And then what are the biggest challenges you’re seeing in terms of really just getting this thing out there and getting people onto the JFrog platform?

Shlomi Ben Haim: Yes. Jason, these are two great questions. First, about the pipeline. We are thrilled to see the pipeline growing with our enterprise portfolio, and we are very happy to see that they are not only considering JFrog Advanced Security versus Curation, or Curation versus JFrog Advanced Security, but both. And to remind you, this is also coming with a different model on top of our subscription that comes basic. So we see the pipeline, we see it growing. These are very promising enterprises that are looking at full adoption of software security – software supplies and security. On the other side, on the flip side of it, none of them is coming from the dock. They all have security solution. They are all running a proof-of-concept.

They are all looking to displace or to consolidate. And pipeline building on the landscape of security is taking longer. So on one hand, very thrilled, very excited about the pipeline and the type of customers that are approaching us and running a proof-of-concept, the solid one, very organized one, consolidating five or more different tools. On the other hand, the lifecycle of a proof-of-concept for security is longer than the DevOps one [ph].

Jason Ader: Got you. Okay. So how is that aligned, show me with your expectations, I guess six months ago. I mean, is this sort of what you expected or is it taking – is it a little bit slower than you expected? And you still are as optimistic as ever in terms of the value proposition, but it’s just going to take a little bit more time.

Shlomi Ben Haim: We are staying in confidence with our targets and what we guide you guys that this year security will become a material piece of our performance in our business.

Jason Ader: Very good. Good luck guys.

Shlomi Ben Haim: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Miller Jump with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Miller Jump: Great. Thank you for taking the questions. I guess maybe I’ll ask one on the self-managed side of the business. You actually had a modest reacceleration there this quarter. Just curious if there was anything one time in nature or anything that made you indicate this might actually exceed your expectations for that part of the business this year?

Ed Grabscheid: Hey, Miller. This is Ed. Nothing one time based, slight acceleration in our self-hosted business. We would expect that the trend in self-hosted will be very similar in 2024 to what we saw in 2023.