Earnings Labs

Riskified Ltd. (RSKD)

Q2 2022 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 10, 2022

$4.48

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Riskified Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Chett Mandel, Head of Investor Relations.

Chett Mandel

Analyst

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Chett Mandel, Riskified Head of Investor Relations. Riskified is hosting this call to discuss its second quarter earnings results for the period ended June 30, 2020. Participating on today’s call are Eido Gal, Riskified’s Co-Founder and CEO; and Agi Dotcheva, Riskified’s Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, Riskified issued a press release announcing its financial results for the second quarter of 2022. A copy of this press release has been furnished with the SEC on Form 6-K. Before we begin, I want to remind you that matters discussed on today’s call will include forward-looking statements related to our operating performance, financial goals and business outlook, which are based on management’s current beliefs and assumptions, and are not guarantees of future performance. You should not put undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Please note that these forward-looking statements reflect our opinions as of the date of this call, and except as required by applicable law, we undertake no obligation to revise this information as a result of new developments that may occur. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond our control that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expected and described today. In addition, we are subject to a number of risks that may significantly impact our business and financial results. For a more detailed description of our risk factors, we encourage you to read Riskified’s periodic and other SEC filings, where you can review a discussion of factors that could cause the company’s actual results to differ materially from these statements. A replay of this conference call will be available on our website under the Investor Relations section. I would also like to remind you that during the call, we will discuss some non-GAAP measures when talking about Riskified’s performance. The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision-making, and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. We believe that these measures provide useful information about operating results, enhance the overall understanding of past financial performance and future prospects and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision-making. You can find a reconciliation of those non-GAAP measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures in the earnings press release issued and furnished on Form 6-K today and in our prior filings with the SEC, all of which is posted on our website at ir.riskified.com. I will now turn the call over to do Eido Gal, Riskified’s Co-Founder and CEO.

Eido Gal

Analyst

Thanks, Chett, and hello, everyone. Since the year started, I have been and remained very confident in our go-to-market strategy, the traction with our pipeline of new and existing clients, our strong financial position and our ability to optimize our expense base through careful cost saving measures as we will further discuss on this call. We believe that the impact of the decisions that we have made to support the growth of the business is clearly seen in our results. We continued our positive momentum from the first quarter with another strong quarter, having achieved quarterly revenue of $60 million, up 8% year-over-year. In the face of the current macro economic landscape, I am pleased that we were able to continue to increase the amount of gross merchandise volume that we reviewed with 25 billion reviewed during the quarter, up 18% year-over-year. Overall, for the first six months of the year, our business continues to perform well and we generated exceptional outcomes for our merchants, while continuing to grow, capture market share and scale our platform. Conversations with our merchants have continued to shift from how do we rapidly grow and fulfill unprecedented amounts of orders at any cost to how can we drive uplifted revenue in a sustainable and profitable manner. The good news for Riskified is that in times like these, we have the ability to help merchants solve this problem through increasing conversion rates, while simultaneously decreasing their fraud-related expenses. We believe that the ROI that we can offer to-date is even more compelling and it’s a much stronger value proposition than non-guaranteed decision, which can’t address these same problems. Proof of the continuing success that we are having with our merchant was seen in our revenue growth during the quarter, which was primarily driven by new…

Agi Dotcheva

Analyst

Thank you, Eido, and thank you everyone for joining today’s call. As Eido mentioned, our GMV for the second quarter was $25 billion, reflecting an 18% year-over-year increase. We also achieved record second quarter revenue of $60 million, up 8% year-over-year. The growth in GMV and revenue during the quarter was primarily driven by the continued expansion of our platform across new merchants and ourselves, and further penetration across industries and geographies. We continue to benefit from having broad diversification across industries. During the second quarter, we enjoyed ongoing growth across our emerging categories and continue to benefit from sustained growth across other categories like fashion and luxury goods and electronics. As expected tickets and travel continues to rebound to be at or above pre-pandemic levels and was the most meaningful area of growth during the second quarter. Alongside the positive traction we’re seeing in the business, some of our more mature merchants declined year-over-year due to softening global ecommerce activity and other macroeconomic factors, such as the easing of COVID restrictions, easy to rising interest rates and supply chain issues. From a geographic standpoint, while we saw ongoing softness in the U.S., particularly in the stay-at-home category, we continue to have momentum outside of the U.S., with the strength in EMEA following the recovery of tickets and travel, and through the addition of new merchants, and once again in APEC, which is an important and growing market for us. Continuing with gross profit margin, as we’ve mentioned in the past, gross profit margin is a metric that is best analyzed on an annual basis, as individual quarters can fluctuate mainly due to the changes in the industry mix of our billing, seasonality factors, the ramping of new merchants, the varying risk profiles, transactions approved and other business priorities. Our…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Terry Tillman of Truist Securities. Please proceed.

Terry Tillman

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Can you hear me okay?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Terry, we can hear you great.

Terry Tillman

Analyst

Wonderful. Hey, Eido, Agi and Chett. Nice solid performance here in 2Q and then also the higher outlook, so nice job on that. And I have two questions, first question, just maybe building on some of the comments on tickets and travel? Could you kind of double click though in 2Q, because you do have some large customers there, but was it broad based across kind of the whole universe of your T&T customers and was it more existing customers, just really having their business perk up or did you have some newer ones that were coming online also that affected the tickets and travel? And then the second part on tickets and travel is, Agi, I think you said, kind of spend in 3Q, should GMV be up somewhat in 3Q on tickets and travel? And then add a follow up?

Agi Dotcheva

Analyst

Yeah. Terry, thank you for the question. So since the second half of last year, we have been seeing strong performance in tickets and travel clients with many returning it’s pre or above pandemic level, more or less. And additionally, as you just mentioned, we have been adding merchants in this area and expanding with existing merchants. So that’s across a number of logos. And regarding Q3, overall, we’re optimistic, but also cautiously observing these trends into the later quarters, because of the year just to see how the momentum kind of goes on.

Terry Tillman

Analyst

Okay. And then just the second question, it’s nice to see the faster pace to profitability. But what I’m curious about is, I mean, should this trend line continue and anything you can share on maybe when we see a breakeven point? And the second part of this is, Ravi is on Board. Congrats on that. We’ve heard great things about him. Is he going to be able to have the wherewithal to be able to add to the salesforce still? Thank you,

Eido Gal

Analyst

Hey, Terry. So I’ll take that. So, yeah, we’re definitely very happy and excited about that reevaluation that resulted in an accelerated path to profitability. We really found some great areas. I think we could do more with less headcount, just optimizing systems, processes and costs, so becoming a bit leaner, while keeping the long-term trajectory intact. We definitely think that the savings are ongoing in nature and we’ll continue to look for ways to find more optimizations. And as we kind of progress throughout the year and get closer to guy for 2023, we can talk about how that would impact those numbers. With Ravi, we’re incredibly excited to have him on Board. It’s been an amazing initial 90 days. I can tell you that the thing that excited me most when I met him is both his experience at Ariba. I think, Ariba kind of led him to go-to-market functions there and the success he’s had over there. And most recently, he was CEO of a company called Crownpeak and he was really able to drive profitable growth. So I think we’re really aligned on kind of the -- we had a great opportunity these first 90 days to align and to go-forward with the market strategy. And I think we both feel that with this updated plan, he definitely has the tools he needs to go out and achieve success in the market.

Terry Tillman

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang of JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Analyst

Thanks so much. Healthy results here. I was curious if you’re changing your risk appetite at all, given some signals of potentially a weaker consumer and what that might mean for your financials, if that’s the case. I’m asking because we’ve heard this earning season a shift towards credit, for example, and some credit tightening with some of the different players. So I’m just curious how you’re seeing that and how your risk performance has been, even to the most recent month -- weeks?

Eido Gal

Analyst

I feel great with the results for the quarter on the chargeback. They’ve been trending better than anticipated and guiding forward. And we continue to anticipate to see improvements on a cohort basis as we progress.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Analyst

Okay. Great. That’s great to hear. I know that, obviously, the gross margin and whatnot was great. So on the storing of the hiring with the expense reevaluation, as you just went through, I’m curious, what -- are you narrowing your focus in certain areas? What areas are maybe being deferred? What are you -- what’s non-negotiable on your side from an investing standpoint?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Well, that’s a great question. I think really what we did to give a few examples to make it a bit more concrete, right, let’s say, there’s a new geography we’re going after. So instead of having 15 people initially, we’ll have 10, right? So we’re really keeping the same opportunities both on the go-to-market side and on the product side. But we’re finding the areas where we can achieve the same financial outcomes that we believe a smaller number of headcount. So that’s really the change.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Analyst

Very clear. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment. And our next question comes from Ramsey El-Assal of Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Ramsey El-Assal

Analyst

Hi. Thanks so much for taking my question this morning. I wanted to follow up with a question on travel -- tickets and travel, and I’m just trying to get a sense relative to 2019 of what tickets and travel is, say, a percentage of volume, really I’m really trying to get at is how much room there is to run from this point on in terms of the recovery of that segment, that vertical?

Agi Dotcheva

Analyst

Yeah. Sure. Ramsey, thank you for the question. So I think what we mentioned in the past, we were at around 2%, but it’s -- just when COVID hit, but that was also partly driven of the shrinking of the industry. A lot has happened since then. And as I just mentioned earlier, on one hand was seeing the recovery and just on that face, we see most of our merchants, and of course, there’s variability between different ones, but most of them are pre-pandemic levels, some are still below. But overall as a cohort, as a group, we think that they are somewhere at or above. And separately, the other part is, we’ve been adding new logos and new merchants and I think this is like a very important driver to continue to expand in this category. And if you see our performance in EMEA and our growth there is really substantial and meaningful and a lot of it is driven by some of the recovery and the growth of new merchants in this category.

Ramsey El-Assal

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. And a follow up from me is, I just wanted to ask about the sales pipeline. I guess you just mentioned in your response now that you’re adding new logos in that category. I was just curious, just, A, for an update on the sales pipeline, but, B, is the macro environment having an impact on decisioning. I know the e-commerce backdrop is tough. I’m trying to think whether that causes merchants to pause a little bit or if it’s the opposite where they think now is the time that I need to implement this, because I need to boost my sales and drive savings, et cetera? Maybe just a couple comments there would be helpful?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Ramsey, so we feel very excited and happy with the performance of the go-to-market teams in the first half and really good about the pipeline entering the second half. I think that the current macro environment is helping our messaging resonate more and more with merchants, because remember, we’re guaranteeing in cost savings, while driving incremental sales. So we do see that resonating a bit better in this environment.

Ramsey El-Assal

Analyst

That makes a ton of sense. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment. And our next question comes from Will Nance of Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Will Nance

Analyst

Hey, guys. Good morning. Appreciate you taking the question. I appreciate all the detail on the expense review this quarter. I wanted to just ask a, I think you made the comment something along the lines of like, this isn’t a one-time reduction, but something that should benefit you guys going forward and it doesn’t change the long-term growth trajectory. Just wondering if it kind of changes the thought process then around terminal margins and where the business can get to over time?

Eido Gal

Analyst

I don’t think there’s been any change in the terminal margin or long-term opportunity from a growth perspective.

Will Nance

Analyst

Got it. Appreciate that. Okay. And then a follow-up question, I just wanted to ask about distribution strategy after the recent FIS partnership with a competitor. I’m just wondering how you guys were thinking about the ability to distribute products or kind of partner with payment processors to kind of extend the reach of the business beyond direct sale?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Yeah. That’s a great question. So let me, two main parts, right? Number one, we see the most success with enterprise clients because we’re consistently the most accurate solutions and these complex enterprise organizations can choose best-of-breed solutions, even though they tend to run multiple gateways and acquires, right? So we really think the direct relationship and integration we have with them provides us with that ability to outperform others in the market. Now when we think about kind of how do we attack the lower tier, it’s definitely something that, these various partnerships could be helpful with and I know that Ravi, he’s kind of ironing out the overall go-to-market strategy and plan. It’s definitely something that’s on his agenda, right? So that would be number one. Number two, I think, it’s a great validation of the chargeback guarantee model in the market, which we continue to benefit from.

Will Nance

Analyst

Got it. Make sense. Appreciate taking the questions and nice results this morning.

Operator

Operator

One moment. [Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Dylan Wright of Credit Suisse.

Dylan Wright

Analyst

Hey guys. It’s Dylan on for Tim. Thanks for taking the question. Can you please give us an update on the discretionary versus non-discretionary mix of GMV or billings in a quarter? And as a quick follow-up stack in a different way, what percentage of billings was related to tickets and travel in Q2 and how does that compare versus last year? I believe, last quarter it was 20% of billings versus 6% in Q1 2021, anything that would be great? Thanks.

Agi Dotcheva

Analyst

Maybe first question, Dylan [ph]. So to answer the second part first, if I think about the market share, as I said, we are expanding both through existing customers, but also adding new. So I believe we saw this growth also sequentially from Q1 to Q2. I don’t have the exact numbers on top of my head, but it’s a very nice meaningful growth overall compared to last year. And the second question, can you just -- I’m sorry, can you repeat the first part?

Dylan Wright

Analyst

Yeah. Yeah. Just trying to get a sense of the discretionary versus non-discretionary mix with GMP or billings?

Agi Dotcheva

Analyst

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. So we’re very diversified and if I look at all the trends that are impacting our portfolio of merchants, I’ll probably not call out this one as a major one. I think more about the growth of services type of fee of the business versus some of the other kind of stay-at-home category. This is a trend that is much more prevailed and he’s a good driver and that we’re seeing some of the kind of the stay-at-home merchants and some of their reports, as well as the public companies, they’ve shown like a tough year-over-year comparison as well and if the trend of continuing to decline. And in terms of discretionary and non-discretionary, as I said, I don’t think there’s anything meaningful to impact to kind of report on anything different from last quarter.

Dylan Wright

Analyst

Thanks. That’s helpful.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment. Our next question comes from Brent Bracelin. Please proceed.

Brent Bracelin

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for taking the call. I have question here. I wanted to double click into the ticketing and travel section, obviously, understand the strength there, but what’s driving new logo momentum? And perhaps, could you talk a little bit about expectations for ticketing and travel in Q3, are you seeing any sort of kind of macro headwinds impact that segments given, obviously, there’s no more macro risk in Q3 here? Thanks,

Eido Gal

Analyst

Hi, Brent. So, actually, over the past year, we’ve seen a lot of traction and movement in the ticket and travel space, as we’ve helped them streamline and automate their operations in a very scalable way. And now that volumes are picking up, we’re really seeing that and enjoying that. So I think it’s more on the value proposition of streamlining and automating the process. And I’ll let Agi take the second part.

Agi Dotcheva

Analyst

Yeah. It’s still healthy and expected to remain strong. So we’re hoping to continue to enjoy the momentum.

Brent Bracelin

Analyst

Right. And is there some sort of like critical mass within ticketing and travel that’s kind of driving additional new logo momentum? Is there any sort of data advantage, it’s playing to your hand here in that vertical, any color on kind of, over the last year, you’re getting the momentum and I get that you can streamline and automate, but within that space, is there becoming a data moat for you at all?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Oh! That’s a great point. And definitely, as we’re seeing more and more success, we’re able to improve performance for everyone within our network, especially within tickets and travel domain. We mentioned that, we’re on a runway to do $100 billion plus guarantee GMV, that puts us certainly the largest guarantee vendor, but also one of the largest vendors in that space. So it’s -- yes, it’s a competitive moat like you mentioned.

Brent Bracelin

Analyst

Helpful color. And then, Agi, as you just think about some of the cost improvement you now have put in place in the model. How are you thinking about that path to break even and beyond? Maybe you could help us kind of bridge how you’re thinking about kind of getting there? Thanks.

Agi Dotcheva

Analyst

Yeah. If I think of some of the areas that we’ve looked into, which is kind of starting with some of the modifying of the current frame, but also looking efficiency across a number of processes and tools that we use, I think, it’s a very meaningful and very exciting step and step forward and which accelerates our path to profitability. And we’re all very much focused as a team as a company to kind of think through the execution. So I’ll say this is a great first step. There’s always areas well continue to sharpen our pencils, we continue to progress.

Brent Bracelin

Analyst

Great to hear. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And I’m sure we have a question from the line of Robert Napoli with William Blair. Robert Napoli…

Robert Napoli

Analyst

So, yeah…

Operator

Operator

… your line is now open.

Robert Napoli

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Nice to see the trends and results? Question, I think, I mean, your target growth rate was has been 25% to 30%, with a combination of 10% to 15% e-commerce growth, 15% growth in new logos, does still -- what is your, I mean, there’s a lot of discussion and disagreement around the e-commerce growth rate over the long-term. But just any thoughts on your long-term growth rates, that growth rate that you had out there previously as we move into 2023 and beyond?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Hey, Bob. Good morning. Good questions. So, look, we’re really happy with the performance in the first half and the second quarter similar to the first quarter, most of kind of the game was driven by net new logos and upsells to our existing clients. So really when you think about the organic growth in combination kind of the regulatory impact, it was negative, right? The really the results we’re seeing a result of kind of that strong growth and we -- we’ve guided to anticipate better numbers in the back half of the year.

Robert Napoli

Analyst

And on e-commerce growth rate?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Yeah. We think there’s still going to be more challenging than the standard year this year.

Robert Napoli

Analyst

Okay. And then just on the path to profitability, just wanted to follow-up on that, I mean, can you put it timing general and when you would expect to get to like EBITDA positive? Is that something that you think is achievable by 2024?

Eido Gal

Analyst

Well, I think, we know, we’ve run the business on a profitable basis before and we know that different levers to pull in order to get there. We’re really happy with the reevaluation and kind of the immediate steps we’ve taken in the accelerated path. And we want to continue to sharpen our pencils on addition areas to create those. We want to be thoughtful as we think about 2023 over the next few quarters and once we do that, we’ll be happy to share kind of more updates and a better guide.

Robert Napoli

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I’m showing no further questions. So, with that, I’ll hand the call back over to Eido for closing remarks.

Eido Gal

Analyst

All right. Thank you everyone. Talk soon in a few months.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.