PagerDuty, Inc. (PD) FY 2022 MD&A

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the section titled “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data” and the consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto included elsewhere in this Form 10-K. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed below. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, adverse effects on our business and general economic conditions due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, those identified below, and those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors” included elsewhere in this Form 10-K. The last day of our fiscal year is January 31. Our fiscal quarters end on April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31.

In this section, we discuss the results of our operations for the year ended January 31, 2022 compared to the year ended January 31, 2021. For a discussion of the year ended January 31, 2021 compared to the year ended January 31, 2020, please refer to Part II, Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2021.

Overview

PagerDuty is a digital operations management platform that manages urgent and mission critical work for a modern, digital enterprise. We empower teams to respond rapidly to incidents to resolve or avoid customer issues,

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reduce noise, predict and avoid performance degradation, improve productivity, and accelerate digital transformation.

Today, nearly every business is a digital business. As such, organizations are under pressure to enhance their digital operations in order to meet escalating customer expectations, resolve incidents proactively and free-up time for innovation projects. This means critical, time sensitive, and unpredictable work needs to be detected and orchestrated.

We collect data and digital signals from virtually any software-enabled system or device and leverage powerful machine learning to correlate, process, and predict opportunities and issues. Using incident response, event management, and automation, we bring together the right people with the right information so they can resolve issues and act on opportunities in minutes or seconds from wherever they are.

Since our founding in 2009, we have expanded our capabilities from a single product focused on on-call management for developers to a multi-product platform that crosses silos into IT operations, security, customer service, and executive stakeholder roles across the organization. We have evolved from an on-call tool into the platform for digital operations, which resides at the center of a company’s technology ecosystem.

We have spent more than a decade building deep product integrations to our platform, and our ecosystem now includes over 650 direct integrations to enable our customers to gather and correlate digital signals from virtually any software-enabled system or device. This allows technical teams to collect digital signals from any system or platform in their environment, and without the effects of context switching. Those same integrations connect with popular collaboration tools and business applications, as well as all types of technology stacks to drive automation of work.

We generate revenue primarily from cloud-hosted subscription fees. We also generate revenue from term-license software subscription fees. We have a land-and-expand business model that leads to viral adoption of our products and subsequent expansion. Our online self-service model is the primary mechanism for landing new customers and enabling teams to get started without assistance. We complement our self-service model with high-velocity inside sales focused on small and medium businesses, a commercial team focused on mid-market customers, and a field sales team focused on enterprise customers. Our mid-market and enterprise customers account for the majority of our revenue today. These teams drive expansion to additional users, new use cases, and add-on products, as well as upsell to higher value plans.

As of January 31, 2022, we had more than 14,500 paying customers globally, ranging from the most disruptive startups to established Fortune 100 companies across every industry including software and technology, telecommunications, retail, travel and hospitality, media and entertainment, and financial services. Our customers use our products across a broad range of use cases such as Engineering, IT Operations, Security, and Customer Service. Of these customers, 594 customers contribute annual recurring revenue (“ARR”) in excess of $100,000, and 43 customers contribute ARR in excess of $1,000,000. We define ARR as the annualized recurring value of all active contracts at the end of a reporting period. We define a customer as a separate legal entity, such as a company or an educational or government institution, that has an active subscription with us or one of our partners to access our platform. In situations where an organization has multiple subsidiaries or divisions, we treat the parent entity as the customer instead of treating each subsidiary or division as a separate customer. Our 10 largest customers represented approximately 11% of our revenue for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, and no single customer represented more than 10% of our revenue in the same period, highlighting the breadth of our customer base. We serve a vital role in our customers’ digital operations and grow with them as their needs expand. As such, we have developed a loyal customer base, with total ARR churn representing less than 5% of beginning ARR for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022. Our ARR churn rate represents lost revenue from customers that were no longer contributing revenue at the end of the current period but did contribute revenue in the equivalent prior year period. We generally bill monthly subscriptions monthly and subscriptions with terms of greater than one year annually in advance.

We expand within our existing customer base by adding more users, creating additional use cases, and upselling higher priced packages and additional products. Once our platform is deployed, we typically see

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significant expansion within our customer base. Our dollar-based net retention rate was 124% for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022.

We have an efficient operating model, which comes from a combination of our cloud-native architecture, optimal utilization of our third-party hosting providers, and prudent approach to headcount expansion. This has allowed us to achieve gross margins of over 82% for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022. Our strong gross margins allow us the flexibility to invest more in our platform and go-to market function while maintaining strong operating leverage on our path to profitability.

COVID-19 Update

In December 2019, a novel coronavirus and the resulting disease (“COVID-19”) was reported, and in March 2020, the World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic.

The extent and continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business continues to depend on certain developments including the duration and spread of the pandemic; government responses to the pandemic; vaccination rates; impact of variants; impact on our customers and our sales cycles; industry or employee events; and effect on our partners and vendors, all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted. While our revenues, billings, and earnings are relatively predictable as a result of our subscription-based business model and the majority of our revenues are generated from annual subscriptions, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the seasonality we historically experience, may not be fully reflected in our results of operations and overall financial performance until future periods, if at all. In addition, while the majority of our revenues are generated from annual subscriptions, we have seen, and may continue to see greater variability in the demand of our product from small and medium business customers. While we see risks associated with more highly impacted companies and industries, we are also seeing new interest from other organizations, driven by rapidly changing work and business environments. As workforces have transitioned to working from home in a distributed model, PagerDuty has become an increasingly critical service.

The majority of our employees continue to work remotely in order to minimize the spread of COVID-19 among our employee base and comply with local regulations within the United States and internationally. As we continue to monitor the local regulations related to COVID-19, we have begun to release travel restrictions on business-related travel, allowing certain employees to travel on a voluntary basis. We continue to provide allowances to our employees to cover expenses related to transitioning to a work from home environment. We also continue to offer local employee assistance programs to employees if needed. These changes remain in effect and could extend into future quarters. The impact, if any, of these and any additional operational changes we may implement to facilitate remote work is uncertain but changes we have implemented have not affected and are not expected to affect our ability to maintain operations, including financial reporting systems, internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls, and procedures.

Since 2020, we have shifted to virtual-only events and experiences, including shifting Summit, our global customer conference series. We have typically relied on marketing and promotional events such as Summit and other in-person conferences, events, and meetings to facilitate customer sign-ups and generate leads for potential customers, and these virtual marketing events and phone or virtual sales interactions may not be as successful as in-person events and meetings. We cannot predict how long nor the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may continue to constrain our marketing, promotional, and sales activities.

On March 27, 2020, the former President of the United States signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”) which includes several significant provisions for corporations, including modifications to the limitation on business interest expense and the usage of net operating losses, and a payment deferral of employer payroll taxes. We elected to defer the payment of employer payroll taxes in the nine months ended October 31, 2020. We are no longer deferring the payment of our employer payroll taxes and have paid all amounts deferred as of January 31, 2022.

Refer to Item 1A, “Risk Factors” for further discussion of the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business.

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Key Factors Affecting Our Performance

Attracting New Customers

Sustaining our growth requires continued adoption of our platform by new customers. We will continue to invest in building brand awareness as we further penetrate our addressable markets. Our financial performance will depend in large part on the overall demand for our platform, particularly demand from mid-market and enterprise customers, and our ability to meet the evolving needs of our customers. As of January 31, 2022, we had over 14,500 paying customers spanning organizations of a broad range of sizes and industries, compared to over 13,500 as of January 31, 2021.

Expanding Within our Customer Base

The majority of our revenue is generated from our existing customer base. Often our customers expand the deployment of our platform across large teams and more broadly within the enterprise as they realize the benefits of our platform. We believe that our land and expand business model allows us to efficiently increase revenue from our existing customer base. Further, we will continue to invest in enhancing awareness of our brand, creating additional use cases, and developing more products, features, and functionality, which we believe are important factors to achieve widespread adoption of our platform.

Sustaining Product Innovation and Technology Leadership

Our success is dependent on our ability to sustain product innovation and technology leadership in order to maintain our competitive advantage. We believe that we have built highly differentiated platform that will position us to further extend the adoption of our products. While sales of subscriptions to our Modern Incident Response product account for a significant majority of our revenue, we intend to continue to invest in building additional products, features, and functionality that expand our capabilities and facilitate the extension of our platform to new use cases. Our future success is dependent on our ability to successfully develop, market, and sell these additional products to both new and existing customers.

Continued Investment in Growth

We plan to continue investing in our business so we can capitalize on our market opportunity. We intend to grow our sales team to target expansion within our mid-market and enterprise customers and to attract new customers. We expect to continue to make focused investments in marketing to drive brand awareness and enhance the effectiveness of our self-service, low friction customer acquisition model. We also intend to continue to add headcount to our research and development team to develop new and improved products, features, and functionality. Although these investments may adversely affect our operating results in the near term, we believe that they will contribute to our long-term growth.

Key Business Metrics

We review the following key business metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate business plans, and make strategic decisions.

While these numbers are based on what we believe to be a reasonable representation of our customer base for the applicable period of measurement, we rely on a third party to validate legal entities, which uses the best available data at period end, and therefore is subject to change as new information becomes available. In addition, we are continually seeking to improve our methodology, which may result in future changes to our key metrics.

Our key metrics include the results of Rundeck, to the extent applicable, beginning on the acquisition date of October 1, 2020.

Number of Customers

We believe that the number of customers using our platform, particularly those that have subscription agreements for more than $100,000 in ARR, are indicators of our market penetration, particularly within enterprise

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accounts, the growth of our business, and our potential future business opportunities. Increasing awareness of our platform and its broad range of capabilities, coupled with the fact that the world is always on and powered by increasingly complex technology, has expanded the diversity of our customer base to include organizations of all sizes across virtually all industries. Over time, enterprise and mid-market customers have constituted a greater share of our revenue.

Dollar-based Net Retention Rate

We use dollar-based net retention rate to evaluate the long-term value of our customer relationships, since this metric reflects our ability to retain and expand the ARR from our existing customers. Our dollar-based net retention rate compares our ARR from the same set of customers across comparable periods.

We calculate dollar-based net retention rate as of a period end by starting with the ARR from the cohort of all customers as of 12 months prior to such period end, or Prior Period ARR. We then calculate the ARR from these same customers as of the current period end, or Current Period ARR. Current Period ARR includes any expansion and is net of downgrades or churn over the last 12 months but excludes ARR from new customers in the current period. We then divide the total Current Period ARR by the total Prior Period ARR to arrive at the dollar-based net retention rate. The calculation of dollar-based net retention rate for the year ended January 31, 2021 includes the Current Period ARR of Rundeck customers to the extent that they were PagerDuty customers as of 12 months prior to period end.

Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

We generate revenue primarily from cloud-hosted software subscription fees with the majority of our revenue from such arrangements. We also generate revenue from term-license software subscription fees. Our subscriptions are typically one year in duration but can range from monthly to multi-year. Subscription fees are driven primarily by the number of customers, the number of users per customer, and the level of subscription purchased. We generally invoice customers in advance in annual installments for subscriptions to our software. Revenue related to our cloud-hosted software subscriptions is recognized ratably over the related contractual term beginning on the date that our platform is made available to a customer. For our term-license software subscriptions, we recognize license revenue upon delivery and software maintenance revenue ratably, typically beginning on the start of the contractual term of the arrangement.

Due to the low complexity of implementation and integration of our platform with our customers’ existing infrastructure, revenue from professional services has been immaterial to date.

Cost of Revenue

Cost of revenue primarily consists of expenses related to providing our platform to customers, including personnel expenses for operations and global support, payments to our third-party cloud infrastructure providers for hosting our software, payment processing fees, amortization of capitalized internal-use software costs, amortization of acquired developed technology, and allocated overhead costs for facilities, information technology, and other allocated overhead costs. We will continue to invest additional resources in our platform infrastructure and our

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customer support and success organizations to expand the capability of our platform and ensure that our customers are realizing the full benefit of our offerings. The level and timing of investment in these areas could affect our cost of revenue in the future.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross profit represents revenue less cost of revenue. Gross margin is gross profit expressed as a percentage of revenue. Our gross margin may fluctuate from period to period as our revenue fluctuates, and as a result of the timing and amount of investments to expand the capacity of our third-party cloud infrastructure providers and our continued efforts to enhance our platform support and customer success teams.

Operating Expenses

Our operating expenses consist of research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses. Personnel expenses are the most significant component of operating expenses and consist of salaries, benefits, bonuses, stock-based compensation expense, and sales commissions. Operating expenses also include amortization of acquired intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, allocated overhead costs for facilities, shared IT related expenses, including depreciation expense, and certain company-wide events and functions.

Research and development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel costs for our engineering, product, and design teams. Additionally, research and development expenses include contractor fees, depreciation of equipment used in research and development activities, acquisition-related expenses, and allocated overhead costs. We expect that our research and development expenses will increase in dollar value as our business grows.

Sales and marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel costs, costs of general marketing activities and promotional activities, travel related expenses, amortization of acquired intangible assets, allocated overhead costs, and bad debt expense. Sales commissions earned by our sales force that are considered incremental and recoverable costs of obtaining a subscription with a customer are deferred and amortized on a straight-line basis over the expected period of benefit, which we have determined to be four years. We expect that our sales and marketing expenses will increase in dollar value and continue to be our largest operating expense for the foreseeable future as we expand our sales and marketing efforts.

General and administrative

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel costs and contractor fees for finance, legal, human resources, information technology, and other administrative functions. In addition, general and administrative expenses include non-personnel costs, such as legal, accounting, and other professional fees, hardware and software costs, certain tax, license and insurance-related expenses, acquisition-related expenses, and allocated overhead costs. We expect that our general and administrative expenses will increase in dollar value as our business grows. However, we expect that our general and administrative expenses will decrease as a percentage of our revenue over the longer term as we expect our investments to allow for improved efficiency for future growth in the business.

Interest Income

Interest income consists of income earned on our cash and cash equivalents and interest earned on our short-term investments which consist of U.S. Treasury securities, commercial paper, corporate debt securities, and U.S. Government agency securities.

Interest Expense

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Interest expense consists primarily of contractual interest expense and amortization of debt issuance costs on our 1.25% Convertible Senior Notes (the “Notes”) due 2025. Refer to Note 8, “Debt and Financing Arrangements” for additional details.

Other (Expense) Income, Net

Other (expense) income, net primarily consists of accretion income and amortization expense on our available-for-sale investments and foreign currency transaction gains and losses.

(Provision for) Benefit from Income Taxes

(Provision for) benefit from income taxes consists primarily of income taxes in certain foreign jurisdictions in which we conduct business. We maintain a full valuation allowance on our net federal and state deferred tax assets as we have concluded that it is more likely than not that the deferred tax assets will not be realized for all years presented. (Provision for) benefit from income taxes also includes the benefit associated with the reduction in our valuation allowance from the increase in the deferred tax liability associated with acquired intangible assets from our acquisition in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021.

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations data for the periods indicated:

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(1)    Includes stock-based compensation expense as follows:

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(1)     Stock-based compensation expense above includes a one-time stock-based compensation expense of $3.1 million related to the modification of certain stock option awards in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021.

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations data expressed as a percentage of revenue:

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Note: Certain figures may not sum due to rounding.

Comparison of the Years Ended January 31, 2022 and 2021

Revenue

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Revenue increased by $67.8 million, or 32%, for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 compared to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021. The increase in revenue was attributable to a combination of growth from both new and existing customers, including customers from the Rundeck acquisition. Growth from existing customers is attributable to both increases in the number of users and upsell of additional products and services.

Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin

Cost of revenue increased by $17.7 million, or 58%, primarily due to an increase of $9.3 million in personnel expenses as a result of increased headcount, an increase of $4.0 million in hosting, software, and telecom costs and $2.0 million in outside services, both of which are to support the continued growth of the business and related infrastructure, and an increase of $0.7 million in amortization of intangible assets related to the acquisition of Rundeck.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses increased by $31.1 million, or 48%, for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 compared to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 and increased as a percentage of revenue. The increase was primarily driven by an increase in personnel expenses of $25.3 million as a result of increased headcount to support our continued investment in our platform, an increase of $3.2 million in costs to support the continued growth of the business and related infrastructure, which includes allocated overhead costs, and an increase of $1.8 million in outside services due to a higher volume of activities to accelerate the development of our product.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $39.5 million, or 32%, for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 compared to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 and was flat as a percentage of revenue. The increase was primarily due to an increase of $24.6 million in personnel expenses driven by headcount growth and amortization of deferred contract costs, partially offset by a one-time stock-based compensation charge due to the modification of certain option awards incurred in the prior fiscal year, an increase of $5.1 million in costs to support the continued growth of the business and related infrastructure, which includes allocated overhead costs, an increase of $4.0 million in outside services due to a higher volume of activities to assist with the continued growth of the business, an increase in marketing expenses of $3.6 million due to increased volume of marketing and advertising activities, and an increase of $1.6 million in amortization of intangible assets related to the acquisition of Rundeck.

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General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses increased by $15.0 million, or 24%, for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 compared to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 and decreased as a percentage of revenue. The increase was driven by an increase of $14.6 million in personnel expenses as a result of increased headcount, an increase in outside services of $2.3 million, the majority of which was due to non-recurring strategic consulting fees, and an increase in insurance, business taxes and licenses of $1.0 million due to a higher volume of activities to support the continued growth of the business. This was partially offset by a decrease of $3.9 million in costs to support the business and related infrastructure which includes allocated overhead costs.

Interest Expense

Interest expense decreased by $4.6 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 compared to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, primarily due to the adoption of ASU 2020-06. Refer to Note 2, "Summary of Significant Accounting Policies", for additional details.

Interest Income and Other Expense, Net

Interest income decreased by $1.3 million and other expense, net increased by $2.0 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 compared to the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, primarily due to lower interest rates on our cash, cash equivalent and investment balances in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to our results determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP, we believe the following non-GAAP financial measures are useful in evaluating our operating performance. We use the below referenced non-GAAP financial information, collectively, to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. We believe that non-GAAP financial information, when taken collectively, may be helpful to investors because it provides consistency and comparability with past financial performance and assists in comparisons with other companies, some of which use similar non-GAAP financial information to supplement their U.S. GAAP results. The non-GAAP financial information is presented for supplemental informational purposes only, should not be considered a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP, and may be different from similarly-titled non-GAAP measures used by other companies. The principal limitation of these non-GAAP financial measures is that they exclude significant expenses that are required by U.S. GAAP to be recorded in our financial statements. In addition, they are subject to inherent limitations as they reflect the exercise of judgment by our management about which expenses are excluded or included in determining these non-GAAP financial

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measures. A reconciliation is provided below for each non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable financial measure stated in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Non-GAAP Gross Profit and Non-GAAP Gross Margin

We define non-GAAP gross profit as gross profit adjusted for stock-based compensation expense and related employer taxes, amortization of acquired intangible assets. We define non-GAAP gross margin as non-GAAP gross profit as a percentage of revenue.

Non-GAAP Operating Loss and Non-GAAP Operating Margin

We define non-GAAP operating loss as loss from operations plus our stock-based compensation expense and related employer taxes, amortization of acquired intangible assets, and acquisition-related expenses, which include transaction costs and acquisition-related retention payments, which are not necessarily reflective of operational performance during a given period. We define non-GAAP operating margin as non-GAAP operating loss as a percentage of revenue.

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(1)     Stock-based compensation expense above includes a one-time stock-based compensation expense of $3.1 million related to the modification of certain stock option awards in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021.

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Non-GAAP Net Loss

We define non-GAAP net loss as net loss plus our stock-based compensation expense and related employer taxes, amortization of debt issuance costs, amortization of acquired intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, which include transaction costs and acquisition-related retention payments, which are not necessarily reflective of operational performance during a given period, and acquisition-related tax benefit.

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(1)     Stock-based compensation expense above includes a one-time stock-based compensation expense of $3.1 million related to the modification of certain stock option awards in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021.

(2)     During the first quarter of fiscal 2022, we early adopted ASU 2020-06 which resulted in the elimination of amortization of debt discount on the convertible senior notes from February 1, 2021.

Free Cash Flow

We define free cash flow as net cash (used in) provided by operating activities, less cash used for purchases of property and equipment and capitalization of internal-use software costs. In addition to the reasons stated above, we believe that free cash flow is useful to investors as a liquidity measure because it measures our ability to generate or use cash in excess of our capital investments in property and equipment in order to enhance the strength of our balance sheet and further invest in our business and potential strategic initiatives. A limitation of the utility of free cash flow as a measure of our liquidity is that it does not represent the total increase or decrease in our cash balance for the period. We use free cash flow in conjunction with traditional U.S. GAAP measures as part of our overall assessment of our liquidity, including the preparation of our annual operating budget and quarterly forecasts and to evaluate the effectiveness of our business strategies.

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Liquidity and Capital Resources

Since inception, we have financed operations primarily through sales of our cloud-hosted software subscriptions, net proceeds we have received from sales of equity securities, and the issuance of our Notes.

On April 15, 2019, upon the closing of our IPO, we received net proceeds of $213.7 million, after deducting underwriters' discounts and commissions of $16.6 million and other issuance costs of $6.4 million.

On June 25, 2020, we issued $287.5 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act. The total net proceeds from the sale of the Notes, after deducting the initial purchasers’ discounts and debt issuance costs of $9.3 million, and purchases of the Capped Calls of $35.7 million, were $242.5 million.

As of January 31, 2022, our principal sources of liquidity were cash and cash equivalents and investments totaling $543.4 million. We believe that our existing cash and cash equivalents, investments and cash provided by sales of our subscriptions will be sufficient to support working capital and capital expenditure requirements for at least the next 12 months. We believe we will meet longer-term expected future cash requirements and obligations, through a combination of cash flows from operating activities and available cash and short-term investment balances. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, our subscription growth rate, subscription renewal activity, including the timing and the amount of cash received from customers, the timing and extent of spending to support development efforts, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, the introduction of new and enhanced product offerings, and the continuing market adoption of our platform. We may in the future enter into arrangements to acquire or invest in complementary businesses, services, and technologies. We may be required to seek additional equity or debt financing. In the event that we require additional financing, we may not be able to raise such financing on terms acceptable to us or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital or generate cash flows necessary to expand our operations and invest in continued innovation, we may not be able to compete successfully, which would harm our business, operations, and financial condition.

A significant majority of our customers pay in advance for our cloud-hosted and term-license software subscriptions. Therefore, a substantial source of our cash is from our deferred revenue, which is included in the liabilities section of our consolidated balance sheet. Deferred revenue consists of the unearned portion of customer billings, which is recognized as revenue in accordance with our revenue recognition policy. As of January 31, 2022, we had deferred revenue of $170.2 million, of which $162.9 million was recorded as a current liability and expected to be recorded as revenue in the next 12 months, provided all other revenue recognition criteria have been met.

Cash Flows

The following table shows a summary of our cash flows for the periods presented:

Operating Activities

Our largest source of operating cash is cash collection from sales of our cloud-hosted and term-license software subscriptions to our customers. Our primary uses of cash from operating activities are for personnel expenses, marketing expenses and hosting and software expenses. In the last several years, we have had periods in which we generated negative cash flows from operating activities and have supplemented working capital requirements through net proceeds from both private and public sales of equity securities and issuance of the Notes.

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Cash used in operating activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 of $6.0 million primarily related to our net loss of $107.5 million, adjusted for non-cash charges of $103.4 million and net cash outflows of $1.9 million due to changes in our operating assets and liabilities. Non-cash charges primarily consisted of stock-based compensation of $70.0 million, amortization of our deferred contract costs of $14.9 million, depreciation and amortization of property and equipment and capitalized implementation costs of $8.4 million, noncash lease expense of $4.5 million, other charges relating to accretion of our investments and bad debt expense of $3.8 million, and amortization of debt issuance costs of $1.8 million. Changes in operating assets and liabilities reflected cash outflows from a $26.2 million increase in deferred contract costs due to commissions paid on new bookings, a $21.6 million increase in accounts receivable due a combination of timing of cash collections and growth in billings, and payments for operating lease liabilities of $5.3 million. These amounts were partially offset by cash outflows from a $40.3 million increase in deferred revenue resulting from increased billings for subscriptions, a $6.8 million increase in accrued compensation primarily due to increased headcount, a $2.8 million increase in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other liabilities and a $1.3 million decrease in prepaid expenses and other assets related to timing of payments made in advance for future services.

Cash provided by operating activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 of $10.1 million primarily related to our net loss of $68.9 million, adjusted for non-cash charges of $74.2 million and net cash inflows of $4.8 million due to changes in our operating assets and liabilities. Non-cash charges primarily consisted of stock-based compensation of $43.2 million, amortization of our deferred contract costs of $11.0 million, amortization of debt discount and issuance costs of $7.8 million, depreciation and amortization of property and equipment and capitalized implementation costs of $5.3 million, and noncash lease expense of $4.4 million. Changes in operating assets and liabilities reflected cash inflows from a $34.7 million increase in deferred revenue resulting from increased billings for subscriptions, an $11.2 million increase in accrued compensation primarily due to increased headcount, and a $0.5 million decrease in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other liabilities. These amounts were partially offset by a $17.6 million increase in accounts receivable due a combination of timing of cash collections and a growth in billings, a $16.9 million increase in deferred contract costs due to commissions paid on new bookings, payments for operating lease liabilities of $4.1 million, and a $2.0 million increase in prepaid expenses and other assets related to timing of payments made in advance for future services.

Cash used in operating activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 of $0.2 million primarily related to our net loss of $50.3 million, adjusted for non-cash charges of $37.0 million and net cash inflows of $13.2 million due to changes in our operating assets and liabilities. Non-cash charges primarily consisted of stock-based compensation of $27.2 million, amortization of our deferred contract costs of $7.8 million, and depreciation and amortization of property and equipment and capitalized implementation costs of $2.3 million. Changes in operating assets and liabilities reflected cash inflows from a $28.5 million increase in deferred revenue, resulting from increased billings for subscriptions, a $3.9 million increase in accrued compensation primarily due to employee contributions on the ESPP and increased headcount, and a $2.6 million increase in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other liabilities. These amounts were partially offset by a $16.0 million increase in deferred contract costs due to commissions paid on new bookings, a $3.6 million increase in accounts receivable due to timing of cash collections, and an increase of $2.1 million in prepaid expenses and other assets related to prepayments made in advance for future services.

Investing Activities

Cash provided by investing activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 of $17.4 million consisted of proceeds from maturities and sales of investments of $221.4 million, offset by purchases of investments of $197.1 million, capitalization of internal use software costs of $3.4 million, and purchases of property and equipment of $3.5 million primarily for purchases of computers for new employees and to support office space for our San Francisco office.

Cash used in investing activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 of $49.3 million consisted of purchases of investments of $222.0 million, cash paid for the Rundeck acquisition, net of cash acquired of $49.7 million, purchases of property and equipment of $4.0 million primarily to support additional office space for our San Francisco and Atlanta offices and purchases of computers for new employees, and capitalization of internal use

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software costs of $0.8 million. These costs were partially offset by proceeds from maturities and sales of investments of $227.2 million.

Cash used in investing activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 of $232.1 million consisted of purchases of investments of $269.8 million and purchases of property and equipment of $5.2 million primarily to support additional office space for our San Francisco and Atlanta offices and purchases of computers for new employees. These costs were partially offset by proceeds from maturities of investments of $43.0 million.

Financing Activities

Cash used in financing activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 of $0.7 million consisted primarily of $23.6 million in employee payroll taxes related to vesting of restricted stock units, partially offset by proceeds from the exercise of stock options of $15.1 million and proceeds from our ESPP of $7.7 million.

Cash provided by financing activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 of $254.4 million consisted primarily of net proceeds of $278.2 million related to the issuance of the Notes, proceeds from the exercise of stock options of $14.1 million, and proceeds from our ESPP of $6.0 million. This was partially offset by purchases of the Capped Calls of $35.7 million and $8.2 million in employee payroll taxes related to vesting of restricted stock units.

Cash provided by financing activities for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 of $225.9 million consisted primarily of net proceeds from our IPO of $220.1 million after underwriting discounts and commissions, proceeds from the exercise of stock options of $7.2 million, and proceeds from our ESPP of $4.1 million. This was partially offset by $5.9 million in payments related to costs associated with our initial public offering.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

Our estimated future obligations consist of purchase commitments, principal and interest payments related to the Notes, and payments for our leases. As of January 31, 2022, we had non-cancellable purchase commitments with certain service providers totaling approximately $64.6 million, principal and interest payments in conjunction with the Notes of $300.1 million, and lease payments of $29.1 million. Refer to Note 9, “Commitments and Contingencies” for additional information.

Indemnification Agreements

In the ordinary course of business, we may agree to indemnify customers, vendors, lessors, business partners, and other parties with respect to certain matters, including, but not limited to, losses arising out of the breach of such agreements, services to be provided by us, or from intellectual property infringement claims made by third parties. As permitted under Delaware law, we have entered into indemnification agreements with our directors and certain officers and employees that will require us, among other things, to indemnify them against certain liabilities that may arise by reason of their status or service as directors, officers, or employees. No demands have been made upon us to provide indemnification under such agreements, and there are no claims that we are aware of that could have a material effect on our consolidated balance sheets, consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss, or consolidated statements of cash flows.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Our consolidated financial statements and the related notes thereto included elsewhere in this Form 10-K are prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or U.S. GAAP. The preparation of consolidated financial statements also requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, costs and expenses, and related disclosures. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results could differ significantly from the estimates made by management. To the extent that there are differences between our estimates and actual results, our future financial statement presentation, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows will be affected. We believe that the accounting policies described below involve a greater degree of judgment and complexity. Accordingly, these are the policies we believe are the most critical to aid in fully understanding and evaluating our consolidated financial condition and results of operations.

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Revenue Recognition

We generate revenue primarily from cloud-hosted subscription fees with the majority of our revenue from such arrangements. We also generate revenue from term license software subscription fees. Our cloud-hosted software subscription arrangements do not provide customers with the right to take possession of the software supporting the cloud-based products and, as a result, are accounted for as service arrangements. Revenue is recognized when control of these services is transferred to customers, in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to be entitled to in exchange for those services. Subscription revenue excludes sales and other indirect taxes.

We determine revenue recognition through the following steps:

•Identification of the contract, or contracts, with a customer.

•Identification of the performance obligations in the contract.

•Determination of the transaction price.

•Allocation of the transaction price to the performance obligations in the contract.

•Recognition of revenue when, or as, we satisfy a performance obligation.

Cloud-hosted software subscriptions

The majority of our cloud-hosted software subscriptions allow customers to use our cloud-hosted software over the contract period without taking possession of the software. Our cloud-hosted software subscription agreements generally have monthly or annual contractual terms. Revenue related to our cloud-hosted software subscriptions is recognized ratably over the related contractual term beginning on the date that our platform is made available to a customer. Access to the platform represents a series of distinct services as we continually provide access to, and fulfill our obligation to, the end customer over the subscription term. The series of distinct services represents a single performance obligation that is satisfied over time. We recognize revenue ratably because the customer receives and consumes the benefits of the platform throughout the contract period.

Term-license software subscriptions

Our subscriptions sold through our on-premise service are primarily term (or time-based) license subscriptions to our platform, which includes both open source and proprietary software as well as support, patches, and the right to receive unspecified software updates and upgrades released when and if available during the subscription. Our term-license software subscription agreements generally have annual contractual terms. We account for the license to the software and support as two separate performance obligations. As the open source software is publicly available at no cost to the customer, we have determined that there is no value to be assigned to the open source software in our term-license software subscription arrangements. The proprietary software license represents a promise to provide a license to use functional intellectual property that is recognized at a point in time on the date access to the software is made available to the customer and the term-license software subscription period has begun. We have concluded the support is a stand-ready performance obligation that consists of a series of distinct services that are satisfied ratably over time as the services are provided. We use a time-based output method to measure progress because our efforts are expended evenly throughout the period given the nature of the promise is a stand-ready service. We recognize support revenue ratably, typically beginning on the start of the contractual term of the arrangement.

Cloud-hosted and term license software subscriptions

In order to determine the stand-alone selling price, we conduct a periodic analysis that requires judgment and considers multiple factors that are reasonably available and maximizes the use of observable inputs that may vary over time depending upon the unique facts and circumstances related to each performance obligation. To have observable inputs, we require that a substantial majority of the stand-alone selling prices for a product offering fall within a pricing range. If a directly observable stand-alone selling price does not exist, we estimate a stand-alone selling price range by reviewing external and internal market factor categories, which may include pricing practices,

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historical discounting, industry practices, service groups, and geographic considerations. We believe that these analyses result in an estimate that approximates the price we would charge for the performance obligations if they were sold separately.

Our cloud-hosted and term-license software subscription arrangements are generally non-cancellable and do not contain refund provisions. We bill for monthly cloud-hosted and term-license software subscriptions on a monthly basis and annually in advance for arrangements with terms of one year or more.

The price of the cloud-hosted and term-license software subscriptions is generally fixed at contract inception and therefore, our contracts do not contain a significant amount of variable consideration. As a result, the amount of revenue recognized in the periods presented from performance obligations satisfied (or partially satisfied) in previous periods due to changes in the transaction price was not material. Subscription revenue excludes sales and other indirect taxes.

Deferred Contract Costs

Deferred contract costs include sales commissions earned by our sales force which are considered incremental and recoverable costs of obtaining a contract with a customer. Sales commissions for initial contracts are deferred and then amortized on a straight-line basis over a period of benefit, determined to be four years. Significant judgment is required in arriving at this period of benefit. We determined the period of benefit by taking into consideration our customer contracts, technology, and other factors. Amounts anticipated to be recognized within one year of the balance sheet date are recorded as deferred contract costs, current, with the remaining portion recorded as deferred contract costs, noncurrent, on the consolidated balance sheets. Amortization expense of deferred contract costs is recorded as sales and marketing expense in the consolidated statements of operations.

Business Combinations and Valuation of Goodwill and Intangible Assets

We apply the acquisition method of accounting for business combinations. Under this method of accounting, all assets acquired and liabilities assumed are recorded at their respective fair values at the date of the acquisition. We allocate the purchase consideration to the net tangible and identifiable intangible assets. Determining the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed requires management’s judgment and often involves the use of significant estimates and assumptions. These estimates can include, but are not limited to, the cash flows that an asset is expected to generate in the future, the appropriate weighted-average cost of capital, and the cost savings expected to be derived from acquiring an asset. These estimates are inherently uncertain and unpredictable.

Goodwill is evaluated for impairment annually in the fourth quarter, and whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value of goodwill may not be recoverable. Triggering events that may indicate impairment include, but are not limited to, a significant adverse change in customer demand or business climate or a significant decrease in expected cash flows. Goodwill is evaluated for impairment at the consolidated level, as we operate as a single reporting unit.

Acquired intangible assets consist of identifiable intangible assets, including developed technology, customer relationships, and tradename, resulting from our acquisition. Acquired intangible assets are recorded at fair value on the date of acquisition and amortized over their estimated useful lives. The carrying amounts of our acquired intangible assets are periodically reviewed for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying value of these assets may not be recoverable or that the useful life is shorter than originally estimated.

Stock-Based Compensation

We recognize compensation expense for all stock-based payment awards, including stock options, restricted stock units (“RSUs”), and performance stock options (“PSUs”, based on the estimated fair value of the award on the grant date.

We estimate the fair value of stock options issued to employees on the date of grant using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model, which is impacted by the estimated fair value of our common stock, as well as certain

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assumptions including the expected volatility over the term of the option awards, the expected term of the awards, risk-free interest rates, and the expected dividend yield. Assumptions and estimates used in the determination of the fair value of stock options are as follows:

Expected volatility—Expected volatility is a measure of the amount by which the stock price is expected to fluctuate. Since we do not have sufficient trading history of our common stock, we estimate the expected volatility of our stock options by taking the average historical volatility of a group of comparable publicly traded companies over a period equal to the expected life of the options.

Expected term—We determine the expected term based on the average period the stock options are expected to remain outstanding, generally calculated as the midpoint of the stock options’ vesting term and contractual expiration period, as we do not have sufficient historical information to develop reasonable expectations about future exercise patterns and post-vesting employment termination behavior.

Risk-free rate—We use the U.S. Treasury yield for our risk-free interest rate that corresponds with the expected term.

Expected dividend yield—We utilize a dividend yield of zero, as we do not currently issue dividends, nor do we expect to do so in the future.

We estimate the fair value of RSUs and PSUs at our stock price on the grant date.

We estimate the fair value of shares to be issued under the ESPP on the first day of the offering period using the Black-Scholes valuation model, which is impacted by the estimated fair value of our common stock, as well as certain assumptions including the expected volatility over the term of the offering period, the expected term of the awards, risk-free interest rates and the expected dividend yield. Assumptions used in the determination of the fair value of the ESPP are the same as those used in the determination of the fair value of our stock options.

We generally recognize compensation expense for employee stock-based payment awards on a straight-line basis over the period during which an award recipient is required to provide services in exchange for the award (generally the vesting period of the award), with the exception of PSUs which are recognized using the accelerated attribution method and based on management’s judgment around the probability of achievement of a performance condition. We account for forfeitures as they occur.

The fair value of each non-employee stock option is estimated at the date of grant using the Black-Scholes option pricing model and is not remeasured over the vesting term. Assumptions used in valuing non-employee stock options are generally consistent with those used for employee stock options with the exception that the expected term is over the contractual life.

Recently Issued and Adopted Accounting Pronouncements

For further information on our recently adopted accounting pronouncements, refer to Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” in the consolidated financial statements contained within this Form 10-K.