Hello. My name is Stephanie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the DigitalOcean First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks, there will be a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Rob Bradley, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to DigitalOcean's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Joining me today is Yancey Spruill, our Chief Executive Officer; and Bill Sorenson, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I want to cover our safe harbor statement. During this conference call, we will be making forward-looking statements, including our financial outlook for the second quarter and full year as well as statements about goals and business outlook, industry trends, market opportunities and expectations for future financial performance and similar items. All of these statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. You can review more information about these in the Risk Factors section of our filings with the SEC. We remind everyone that our actual results may differ, and we undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements. Finally, we will be discussing non-GAAP financial measures on our call. Reconciliations between our GAAP and non-GAAP financial results can be found in our earnings press release, which was issued earlier this afternoon and in the investor presentation on our IR website. With that, let me turn the call over to our CEO, Yancey Spruill. Yancey?

Thanks, Rob. Apologize for the slight delay, kicking this off. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm pleased to share the details of another strong quarter for DigitalOcean. Q1 demonstrates that we are building a highly efficient business that combines strong revenue growth with significant free cash flow generation. Despite an increasingly uncertain macro environment, we are proving the strength of the DigitalOcean business model quarter-after-quarter and beating our top line guidance once again. We are maintaining our previous revenue outlook for the full year 2022. While there is some near-term global economic uncertainty, especially in Eastern Europe, we have a number of initiatives that give us confidence that we will manage through near-term macro challenges and have another strong year of growth and free cash flow. Bill will walk you through those details in a few minutes. But first, I want to address some of the key developments from the quarter. We're pleased with our Q1 performance as we continue to see exciting developments in product. We released the beta version of serverless function in customers' hands and are on track to make a generally available release to all customers very soon. We saw a dramatic increase in the unique visitors to our website with visits up over 70% year-over-year in the first quarter, that's before the recent acquisition of CSS-Tricks, which will significantly boost monthly visitors as we move through this year. As I will share in the customer story shortly, bringing developers and businesses on to DigitalOcean early in their journey is a vital component to our strategy to drive sustainable growth and website visits are a strong proxy for the health of that part of our customer acquisition strategy. Customers that come through this channel is presenting us with modest near-term revenue but a…

Thanks, Yancey. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today to discuss another quarter of strong results that produce revenue and free cash flow that exceeded expectations. Yancey captured much of the positive momentum we are seeing across the business, so I'll keep my remarks fairly brief. I'm going to focus on some top line numbers, customer dynamics, free cash flow and CapEx, along with our financial outlook before turning it over to the operator to take your questions. For the first quarter, revenue grew 36%, which represents our fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth greater than 35%. This was driven by 117% net dollar retention, the highest we have ever reported as a public company. Revenue per customer improved 28% and 20% growth in the number of high spend customers with total customer growth of 6%. We also had healthy cash from operations of $30 million and free cash flow that was 4% of revenue. Once again, our results demonstrate DigitalOcean's superb product market fit. DigitalOcean's combination of customer growth, ARPU growth and high-teens NDR are proving to be a valuable mix and continues to be the foundation for durable 30% plus revenue growth. Providing some more context on our customers, we see ongoing success in attracting and onboarding high-spend customers or those who spend more than $50 per month with DigitalOcean. This cohort is now more than 102,000 strong and grew by 20% year-over-year, up from 85,000 in Q1 2021. In many regards, these customers, which typically use multiple products and services have been critical to the improvement in NDR that we've experienced over the last two years. In Q1, revenue from these customers grew 43% and now represent 84% of our total revenue, up from 80% last year. The increasing percentage of revenue indicates their value…

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Michael Turits with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hi, this is Billy [ph] on for Michael. Good to see customer ads get back to the mid-teens level. I guess, how should we think about the sustainability of that mid-teens level to drive customers' growth to your goal of 10%? Thanks.

Well, our longer-term target remains 10% for year-over-year net logo adds, customer adds. And we're making very good progress. We talked about the growth in our website visits. Our conversion rates have been good, where the net new customers we're adding has been very strong as has the dollar per revenue out of the box as we've talked about. And then we're complementing that with our sales efforts. So we feel very good about where we are today in terms of customer additions. We're going to continue to invest in that. And as we -- as Bill noted, we are outperforming our initial plans this year in this area, and we're going to continue to have this be a principal area of focus. So 10% is our longer-term goal. We should start to edge up to that over time, and we're very pleased with the performance in the first quarter and our current outlook for this part of our customer acquisition motion.

Great. Thanks.

Your next question comes from Mark Murphy with JPMorgan.

Yes. Thank you very much. So Yancey, Europe is a big question on everyone's mind, and we know you factored it into your guidance. I'm curious outside of your -- any kind of direct exposure into Russia and Ukraine, how would you characterize the activity kind of elsewhere in Europe, just in terms of business confidence, usage trends and retention rates? When you do see impact, how is that kind of manifesting for you? And I have a quick follow-up.

Yes. So our -- as we talked about in the outlook and sort of the impacts we're seeing in this 60, 70 days, since this unfortunate situation to put it mildly has started, clearly we're seeing some impacts in the areas we talked about. I think there is broader uncertainty. But in terms of our business trajectory, I would say we're largely per expectation to this point. obviously, things could change. But there's no doubt that -- and what we saw a couple of years ago when we went into a pandemic and a severe recession was our customers hung in there. And we were able to execute, acquire customers, lower churn, et cetera. So the SMB marketplace is very resilient and so that’s been demonstrated time and time again through financial crisis, disruptions, et cetera. Also, I'd point folks to -- Forrester issued a report in the first quarter citing 200% IRRs returns that customers get when they use DigitalOcean. So the reality is we're a very cost-efficient solution for people and where we show up in the income statement of our customers is cost of sales. And we're a vital aspect to them turning on their service. And so it's one of the last areas for them to turn it off. And when you look at the value proposition centers of the relative cost, we tend to be 2-ish, 2.5% of COGS for our customers, the spend that they have with us. We're just an incredibly and highly performing capability. So we feel like we've demonstrated resiliency during the pandemic or at least the first two years of this pandemic. And so feel good about the value proposition. We feel good about the additions we're making to the platform to provide even more value for customers. For example, our serverless functions coming online here in a couple of weeks. But in terms of what we're seeing is about what we expected and we'll see how things progress as we move through the year.

Okay. I think I’ll leave it there. Thank you very much for taking my question.

Your next question comes from Raimo Lenschow with Barclays. Your line is now open

Hey, thank you. Could I ask on the -- if you -- just to remind us, new products like serverless, you had MongoDB as an extra service that you launched, like what are the price points there? And how big do you think those extra products that are kind of slightly higher value-add than your normal droplet could be over time as part of the whole organization? Thank you.

Yes. So those are modest uplifts in terms of depending upon the volumetric and the types of use cases the customers have. They tend to be uplifts in terms of ARPU adds to existing customers. And what I would say is when we launch a product, our expectation is that three-plus years out, we're going to be at least 300 basis points contribution to growth to give you a sense of size and scale. It takes a while for those customers given the nature of our revenue model, our subscription to offer the number of customers to build on the platform. We're now seeing Mongo getting into that critical mass that will be a material contributor at really high growth rates. We'll expect serveless to build during the course of this year, contribute to revenue growth and be an outsized driver of pushing revenue supporting our 30%R plus growth targets overtime. And but we're targeting new products contributing 300 basis points two-, three-plus years out as a criteria for when and how we decide to launch what products.

Okay. Perfect. Congrats, thank you.

Your next question comes from Tim Horan with Oppenheimer & Company. Your line is open.

Thanks, guys. Just 2 follow-ups. On the new products, can you maybe just talk about how many major new products you think you can launch a year at this point? And just maybe some color on what areas make the most sense. And then just following up on your comments on maybe further thinking on what a recession might mean for you guys? And can you give any metrics what happened two years ago when we had a slowdown? I know it was a different world, but did you see much impact to trends at all at that time. Thanks.

Well, our sort of -- recent cadence is sort of one major new product a year plus a number of feature enhancements on existing capabilities. We've obviously made some significant changes in our product and technology innovation capability over the last six months. We're starting to execute on change in the first half of this year which I’m really excited about. And the designation of that change is to give us greater velocity. So we'd like the capacity to do more than one major new product a year and more than a handful or a couple of handful of feature enhancements. So we're in the motion here while expecting in the second half of this year and certainly next year to significantly improve our velocity, quality, transparency of our execution because what we've seen in the last two to three years is the launch of managed databases, Kubernetes, our first foray app platform in services, obviously, service functions coming this month, Our marketplace is we've substantially added to the revenue growth because per the customer journey in the case we just shared, as customers build out their capabilities in their businesses, they consume more PaaS offerings or SaaS offerings. And to the extent we give them relevant SaaS offerings, that's going to be a strong contributor to growth. So I'm excited about the changes we've made, the investments we're making in product and innovation is a huge fuel of our growth and of our reputation and relationship with our customers. And so very excited about increasing velocity here as we get into the back half, second half of the year and into 2023. In terms of the first question about a recession two years ago, well, I hope we all never see a more severe recession that we saw two…

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Jim Fish with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

This is Quinton on for Jim Fish. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe first, just a quick one net large customers added in the quarter, did see a slight downtick compared to prior levels, is there higher churn here, or anything to call out that was kind of one-time in nature, or was this kind of 3,000 level, the way to think about it as a little bit more sustainable moving forward? And then we do have a quick follow-up. .

I think the way to think about it is revenue growth was basically in line with where it was last to prior quarter. So yes, customer growth and adds each quarter can oscillate a little bit, but still very strong. I think what's important to note is we expect it to be materially higher than the overall company growth rate because like the customer example we just shared with you thousands of those people every month, they're going into the higher dollar category as they get lift off on their business. And so that's a key aspect of this. And then we'll also see more of those new customers as we continue to ramp and see strong performance in our inbound and outbound and partner channel efforts -- sales efforts. So without -- I wouldn't necessarily focus on the 400 basis point change quarter-over-quarter. I focus on the revenue growth and the percentage of revenue contribution also ticked up and that's a trend. Those three things, customer growth will be higher in this $50 an up. Revenue growth will be higher than the overall company and percentage of revenue mix will continue to expand. I think those are the three things to focus on. And then the quarter-to-quarter variability in some of those metrics, but the metrics will hold consistent in the near-term as we see it.

Got it. Yes, that makes a ton of sense. And then maybe touching more on the launch for the serverless. Can you talk about your strategy here? Is the goal kind of in Q2 and Q3 to drive adoption first and then monetization kind of in the back half of the year, or is it kind of monetization along with adoption? Maybe any sense of motion is going to move would be helpful? Thank you.

Well, we want awareness and adoption, and that's going to lead to -- as those customers ramp, we want monetization. We launched the product because it's interesting for customers, and it will be interesting to support top line revenue growth goals of 30% or better. So that's how we see it. But it builds, right. The nature of adding our customer you get 1/ 12 of an annual revenue each month. And so we'll be driving customer growth. We focused on month-over-month trends in terms of customers' ads, how they're using the product. Are they testing Sirius or what have you, and we expect to see super high growth rates in the near term on customer adds and revenue and that will be a meaning. As those dollars become material, they obviously start to materially impact overall growth, and that will be the case here for the next several years on our way to 300 basis point contribution to overall revenue mix in the next two to three years for serverless.

Your next question comes from Wamsi Mohan with Bank of America. Your line is open

Yes, thank you. My question is on the revenue trajectory. You're coming in slightly below 30% of the midpoint on 2Q. But your comps really start to get tougher again and -- I mean they are tough in 2Q, but they're also tougher in 3Q and 4Q. Can you help us think through what are the incremental things that can get you back about 30% growth in 3Q? Do you get back, first of all, about 30% growth in 3Q based on your full year guide, you should be tracking there either or a big acceleration in 4Q. So how should we think about sort of the trajectory based on your new product introductions and new initiatives as we think through that ramp? And I have a question on operating margin after that.

Well, I'll let Bill address the operating margin. I think it's quite simple. We -- our jobs to set expectations that we meet and beat. And I know there's a lot of gamesmanship on the beats in the game, what the guide, all this. We've just set expectations we intend to be. I think that's the point. As we said, there is some near-term, and we're taking the sort of the near-term impact from Russia, Ukraine, et cetera, this quarter. So we're taking a little dip this quarter as we pull our revenue out of the outlook. We'll start to normalize against that because of the outperformance we're seeing in our go-to-market motions on sales and self-serve, which we talked about, the launch of serverless and some packaging and pricing monetization initiatives that we're taking a very hard look at right now. So that's how we lap that. But you're right, we were accelerating through last year, and that creates 'tougher comps.' At the same time, we have other initiatives this year to help us offset the impact of that to continue to support 30% or better growth rate. And we also set expectations that we intend to be -- so I think that's how to think about our approach to how we set expectations, the guidance we just discussed and our plans for where we see opportunities to continue to deliver strong growth in the business.

Okay. Thanks, Yancey. And Bill, maybe on the operating margin and free cash flow commentary, I think you guys said Q1 is typically the bottom and then you sort of build from there, both for operating margin and free cash flow. But I think you called out some hiring initiatives in Q2 that's going to pressure operating margin sequentially here into Q2. So as we think about that free cash flow profile as well, how should we think about the cadence of that? And then you guys actually did have a slight miss on your operating income that you called out in the quarter as well. So the ramp to sort of the second half profitability, is that all just revenue leverage coming on higher revenues, or is there anything else happening on the cost line as well? Thank you.

Well, it's a variety of things. But first, one other thing on the revenue one, we took $3 million out of Q2. And if you didn't take $3 million out of Q2, you're 32% plus. So what we have is a near-term hit from some macro factors that we're going to outgrow as we move through the year. In terms of the margin, we do see sort of a flat margin in Q2, and that's largely because we're doing the vast bulk of our hiring by June 30. And after that, we don't see any incremental ramp in spend through the year. And as you know, Q3 and Q4 are two largest quarters of the year. So spending growth will basically be substantially slower and you will see our margins up into the mid- to high teens as you move into Q3 and Q4, even with lower profile, even in Q2, where we're around 10%, 11% from a guidance perspective, we're still forecasting positive free cash flow. And as we move through the year and again the profitability margins get bigger, you'll see bigger contributions than the 4% or so that we had in Q1, but we expect to be progressive in terms of our CapEx generated per quarter will continue to grow quarter-on-quarter.

Okay. Thanks so much.

Your next question comes from James Breen with William Blair. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking question. Just can you talk about DBNR 117 and how you think about that moving up as you add products and given the existing growth in your customer base? Thanks.

So as we look at net retention, we're definitely going to have a challenge in Q2. $3 million of revenue coming out of the top line for us as a result of what's going on in Eastern Europe is clearly going to have a near-term impact on NDR. We see, though, as we move forward in the back half of the year, moving back up sort of to the high teens. And the question that we continue to work on is where can we drive it to? Our goal would be to drive it over 120%. We have an enormous customer base, as you know. But part of what we're doing is to focus on those 50% -- $50 and greater, those folks who are demonstrating 117%, 118% NDR. So after a tough comp in Q2, our expectations is that you're going to see NDR move back up towards that 116%, 117% range. And our hope, as we've already seen historically, I mean, last year, in particular, a massive leap in terms of our NDR launched with new products as new products are coming on, customers are buying more products, which in turn is driving incremental usage of the base infrastructure. So we think and serverless launch is another step to us driving greater and greater ARPU and greater and greater NDR from our customers, particularly those bigger than $50 a month.

Great. Thanks.

Your next question comes from Josh Baer with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Thanks for the question. Two quick ones. I know the CS-Tricks content is and will remain free and open, but I was just wondering if there's any advertising or other revenue streams associated with that acquisition?

Nothing that's material, nothing that's meaningful. No.

Okay. Great. And then I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about the brand relaunch. I was just wondering what were some of the changes that were made and why what you are looking to achieve? Thanks..

Well, if you look historically at DigitalOcean, we have this dynamic where 500-plus thousand customers generating 15% of our revenue and 15%, which we put more in the developers or early-stage startups. And we spent a lot of our effort just on the brand there. But 15% of our customers, 100,000, 102,000 last quarter generate nearly 85% of our revenue. And we weren't spending a proportion of effort in communicating and speaking to that constituency. And so I think we're -- it's more balanced, and it's more speaking to the journey and come grow with us. And so I would say that was -- that's the principal focus is to make sure that we're aligning who we serve, how we serve them over what stages that we serve them in our messaging. And that's especially important as we've been not just nurturing the customers like in the case study that we just showed or discussed on this call and previous earnings calls. It's also increasingly important as month-after-month with our outbound selling effort, we're seeing lots of customers come from hyperscalers and the reason that they come to us is because we have a highly performance set of capabilities at half the price. And we wanted to make sure that we broaden our brand to speak to people and resonate with them as they're considering alternatives from being underserved at other platforms. And that's what we're trying to accomplish as a part of repackaging the brand.

Great. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I turn the call over to Yancey for closing remarks.

I want to thank you all for joining us. As you can tell, we're very excited about our Q1 results. And despite the uncertainty that we face, we feel confident in our ability to flow through given the assets, the brand, the team we have here at DigitalOcean. We look forward to continuing our conversation with you, our investors in the weeks, months and obviously, the years ahead, and we're working hard to realize the limitless potential of DigitalOcean. So thank you so much and have a great rest of the day.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.