Coupa an Acquisition Machine

Coupa is an interesting company to me. They operate in the BSM (Business service management) space which is huge. BSM is basically controlling a companies spend. Invoices, payments, sourcing, etc. I have been intrigued by the accelerating growth that you can see in the chart below. When I looked closer though I realized that coupla has made 11 acquisitions since 2017 probably responsible for around 100 million a year worth of revenue.

5 of those acquisitions are since q2 2019. (Note, dates and quarters don’t line up with coupa)

  1. DCR workforce sept 4 2018 approximately 27.5 annual rev
  2. Aquiire oct 15 2018 apprximately 13 million annual rev
  3. Hiperos dec 10 2018 approximately 24 million annual rev
  4. Exari may 7 2019 approximately 13 million annual rev
  5. Yapta jan 7 2020 approximately 13 million annual rev

                       Rev              % growth          approximate acquisition rev        % organic growth
                
Q3 2019        67.4              42.5                    *6(dcr)+1(hiperos)                       27        
Q4 2019        74.9              39.4                    *6(dcr)+6(hiperos)+3(Aqui)               12 
Q1 2020        81.4              44.4                    *6(dcr)+6(hiperos)+3(Aqui)               17
Q2 2020        95.1              54.3                    *6(dcr)+6(hiperos)+3(A)+1.9(exari)       27
Q3 2020        101.8            50.9                      3.7(exari)+6(hiperos) +3(A)             32

First off, this analysis is deeply and fundamentally flawed for a number of reasons.
I only have approximate revenue numbers scraped from the internet for the acquisitions.
I don’t know when revenue was recognized. I can only guess
I don’t know how the companies were integrated so even though my guess for revenue for DCR is 27.5 million the way they were integrated might mean that first year they only got 15 million of revenue.

Another way of looking at this is to take the TTM revenue and back out the approximate revenue contributed by acquisitions to get organic growth. That gives us somewhere around 25% organic growth.

Ultimately all this is just spitballing but I do think it provides some interesting data about how Coupa operates and what to expect in the future. .

My takeaway
Coupa has been very successful in acquiring companies and integrating them into their platform. As per saul’s post here https://discussion.fool.com/hi-muji-you-say-that-coupa-is-on-you… . They are showing improving cash flow, operating leverage and earnings. Hard to argue with all that.
(copy and pasted)

Subscription Revenue was up 49%, and was 88% of revenue.
Calculated billings were up 54%.
Now we get to the GOOD stuff:
Operating Income was $11.6 million. (By comparison the previous 7 quarters were 0.9, 0.3, 4.0, 5.8, 2.4, 2.2, and 4.8. Making $11.6 looks like they are breaking out).
Adjusted Net Income was $14.2 million. (By comparison the previous 7 quarters were 1.4, (0.1), 3.3, 5.5, 3.4, 2.1, and 5.3. Making $14.2 also looks like they are breaking out).
EPS was 20 cents. The previous high ever was 8 cents.

And honestly, what better company to be a serial acquirer than a BSM company. They should be experts at integrating the backend and see significant cost savings which is why i think we see such good operational results.

I used to invest in another company that used many small acquisitions to grow called Middleby. They were masters at it until they took over Vicking which was a really big bite. They then had all sorts of problems integrating the companies, manufacturing problems etc. I bring this up because the tendency that I have seen is for these companies to make bigger and bigger acquisitions to keep up the growth.

Even though I really like to see the revenue growth increase I think we especially need to keep an eye on cash flow and debt for a company like Coupa which so far look good. Cash flow is improving. Debt is increasing but assets - debt is staying relatively even at around 300 million

Finally, do i think Coupa is a good investment? That is a hard one. I’m not as excited about it as I was before I looked into it a little more deeply. Comparisons after next quarter won’t have their larger recent acquisitions in the comparison so unless Coupa makes some bigger acquisitions growth is going to appear to slow down. I think Coupa’s CAP and TAM are quite large which part of the reason why I think they are so highly valued. I was a little disappointed that coupa makes it so hard to figure out organic growth vs inorganic growth and since seeking alpha is starting to charge money for any CC transcripts more than a couple of quarters old I don’t have old CCs to help me. My guess is organic growth is somewhere around 20-30%, probably closer to 20%. Not bad, but not great unless they can keep finding companies to add into the fold.

Thoughts welcome.

Also, Does anyone have customer counts going back a couple of years?

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Thanks ethan, I never did look into all the acquisitions, and that certainly puts a new light on it. But I have to ask? How do YOU account for the big rise in operating income, net income and EPS? That doesn’t come from a new acquisition. Acquisitions never are that profitable!

And how do you account for this?

Operating Cash Flow and Free Cash Flow were $26 million and $22 million. A year ago they were $4 million and less than $3 million. Increases in Cash Flow of $20 million yoy certainly doesn’t come from new acquisitions either. The business must be doing well.

And then we have TTM Operating Cash Flow and TTM Free Cash Flow at $55 million and $43 million. This is a business that is working, no matter how you look at it, and perhaps turning into a cash generating machine. Correct me if you see it differently.

As Bert said a year ago “It has grown its TAM prodigiously by expanding into ancillary spaces that enhance the value of e-procurement. At this point, it seems destined to become the absolute leader in its space, and to achieve the kind of profitability that leaders often deliver in the enterprise software world.”

Best,

Saul

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One of the best investments for the last 12 years is Constellation Software with annualized return of 37% from 7/2007 to today (5,055%). Their growth is basically through acquisition. So non-organic growth is ok as long it’s done right.

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Ethan, in reflecting, I think what has happened is that as they incorporated all these little variegated acquisitions, each giving it a new skill to add to its platform, they have now acquired a complete and integrated platform that make it more attractive to customers, and especially large cap enterprises, and make it easier to sign them up, and that may be the secret.

Best,

Saul

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5 of those acquisitions are since q2 2019. (Note, dates and quarters don’t line up with coupa)
1) DCR workforce sept 4 2018 approximately 27.5 annual rev
2) Aquiire oct 15 2018 apprximately 13 million annual rev
3) Hiperos dec 10 2018 approximately 24 million annual rev
4) Exari may 7 2019 approximately 13 million annual rev
5) Yapta jan 7 2020 approximately 13 million annual rev

Looking at the 12/13/19 10-Q, https://investors.coupa.com/static-files/2ffc168b-2e6f-4f4e-…, we can see the acquisition costs of these companies (ex. Yapta). Using the revenue numbers above, here are the static, point-in-time P/S valuations at the time of purchase. All purchase amounts include cash-at-close + cash holdbacks + stock (price of shares given in 10-Q) as if all milestones have been hit and the maximum sale price for the sellers is achieved.

Exari: $14.6M/$13M = 1.1x
Hiperos: $94.8M/$24M = 4.0x
Vinimaya: (dba Aquiire): $49.5M/$13M = 3.8x
DCR: $52.2M/$27.5M = 1.9x

If the revenue information is correct, close to correct, or even accidently only quarterly revenue instead of annual revenue, it would appear that Coupa has been able to arbitrage the acquisitions by buying these companies at a lower P/S ratio and count them as Coupa revenue going forward at a higher P/S ratio. My takeaway on these small acquisitions is that Coupa should be rolling them up as fast as possible while they have such a massive arbitrage available.

Lee

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Excellent write up as always Ethan… its about time someone pointed this out in detail…

I was a little disappointed that coupa makes it so hard to figure out organic growth vs inorganic growth

this is one of the reasons I never built confidence in COUP. It almost feels like a purposeful hiding… as COUP has done multiple seemingly small acquisitions that together add meaningful revenue, and really goes to a good length to hide their impact on revenue growth rate… makes most casual observers think they are accelerating (organic) revenue growth…

I see even someone as astute and smart as Saul (who was unhappy with TWLO CEO last quarter touted high growth rate that included Sendgrid acquisition in his headline message)… gushing on COUP’s revenue growth and not really articulate any thought on organic vs in-organic growth… makes me think he is missing this part of the picture…

I have seen many “rollup” companies… (as they are called when a company goes on to build large size through serial acquisitions) happens a lot more in mature field OR a field that does not have fast growing TAM… there is nothing wrong with such strategy… its actually excellent strategy and lot of wealth is built using this strategy in many industries…

But its entirely different when one actively hides acquired revenue and ends up confusing investors with organic growth… and to be fair, COUP does not mention “organic” growth, its just that COUP has sizable organic growth (at 30%+ rate) drives most investors (not so thorough as Ethan) believe that entire growth (50%+) is organic and makes them compare to companies like DDOG and CRWD and AYX and OKTA…

Just to be clear - I believe COUP is strong business and their mix of organic and acquired product portfolio builds up a very strong business… all I am saying is that COUP may be much lower valuation if investors have clarity that its organic growth rate is lower (by > 10%) than the headline growth rate it shows…
In other words, at 35x P/S today, COUP is trading at higher PS than ZM, CRWD, OKTA and AYX all of which have organic growth rate more than 10% higher than COUP and also higher gross margin… I believe this situation exists due to the fact that COUP shows higher and accelerating top line growth than it what it achieves organically.

nilvest

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re: saul I agree that its tam is rapidly expanding. They appear to have a huge runway ahead of them. I also think they have been very wise in their acquisitions so far. Most of them either expand their use case or allow them to leverage their existing use case even more efficiently. I.e. turn around invoices in 3 days instead of 2 weeks. I agree that their business results are superb!

Re TMFBuffjan. Thanks for the additional information! I suspect my revenue estimates which are from owler could be wildly off.

great discussion fellow fools!

…they have now acquired a complete and integrated platform…

I would not draw a straight line between acquisitions and integrated features. I know nothing of the company in question, or its products, or its acquisitions, but there are real features and there are checkbox features. Your sales team can start claiming a feature as soon as you buy the outfit and change a few names. It lets them check the box, yeah we have that! But integration generally takes work, and time.

So I would be cautious about assuming too much about acquisitions going to enhance the product, especially on any short time frame.

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Saul said…

How do YOU account for the big rise in operating income, net income and EPS? That doesn’t come from a new acquisition. Acquisitions never are that profitable!

And how do you account for this?

Operating Cash Flow and Free Cash Flow were $26 million and $22 million. A year ago they were $4 million and less than $3 million. Increases in Cash Flow of $20 million yoy certainly doesn’t come from new acquisitions either. The business must be doing well.

And then we have TTM Operating Cash Flow and TTM Free Cash Flow at $55 million and $43 million. This is a business that is working, no matter how you look at it, and perhaps turning into a cash generating machine. Correct me if you see it differently.

Saul, assuming these are all non-gaap numbers you see, it precisely matches rollup strategies…
most successful rollups able to go on serial acquisitions by “optimizing” acquired company operations and generating cash… this is all good but its not all resulting due to “stellar and accelerating organic growth”

I agree with Kevin2017 and TMFBuffjjan… COUP management seems like very savvy, some of the best I have seen so far that achieves strong results riding both organic and acquisitions strategy in a focused, coherent manners (these are not plain words… most serial acquirers struggle with staying focused and keeping portfolio coherent)… I just dont believe its valuation multiple should be at par with DDOG and CRWD and AYX… should be much less…

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Certainly one reason for “hiding” revenue might be if the acquisitions were such that they became embedded in core product and thus were sold as a part of core product and thus not easily separable. If the acquisition remains a separate product with its own identity and sales stream, even if it is somehow complementary to the core product, then one can reasonably identify its own revenue contribution, at least for a while. But, not if it becomes embedded in the core.

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In the real estate development business, if you look hard enough, you will find a reason not to do the deal. While I vetted every real estate transaction myself, I was always looking for the compelling reason to do the deal. In this particular instance, I think Saul has presented in a few board posts the compelling reasons to own COUP. Having owned COUP since March '18, I have my own compelling reasons. Analysis is great; over analysis can be a tricky walk.

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Saul (who was unhappy with TWLO CEO last quarter touted high growth rate that included Sendgrid acquisition in his headline message)… gushing on COUP’s revenue growth

Hi nilvest,

There is a BIG difference here. The Twilio CEO was doing what I would call outright lying. He several times said “We are showing tremendous 75% revenue growth at scale!” which means “Even though we have grown this big, we are STILL growing revenue at a tremendous 75% rate!” which was very untrue. The combined company was growing at about 42% (as I estimated), but he was getting 75% by combining the revenue of two fairly large companies in the 2019 quarter and comparing it to just the Twilio revenue in the 2018 quarter.

I just looked it up. Here’s what the press release and conference call said (bolding and capitalization are mine to make it clear what I’m complaining about:

We delivered another quarter of INCREDIBLE growth at scale with revenue growth of 75% year-over-year.

Our third quarter results were strong with total revenue growing 75%, TREMENDOUS growth at this scale

That’s not at all the same as Coupa adding in little tuck-in acquisitions and just saying “Our revenue this quarter was $xxx million”, and simply using the standard accounting way of presenting it.

The Twilio CEO bragging about it and inserting the “incredible” and the “tremendous” and “revenue growing at 75%, tremendous growth at this scale” was downright deceptive. The combined company was growing at about 42% “at this scale”. I decided I wouldn’t invest with a CEO who I couldn’t trust to tell me the truth about other things that I might not be able to figure out for myself the way I did for this one.

Best,

Saul

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Thanks, Ethan.

Your post has sparked a great discussion.

I think that COUP has made some great tuck-in acquisitions that are being leveraged into their existing business. This strategy has worked for them in the past and it seems to have not only contributed to the recent revenue growth acceleration but also to the uptick in cashflows.

The concern that I have is that the level to which the revenue growth rate has accelerated may not be sustainable unless COUP continues to make acquisitions that provide similar percentage increases in revenue. This means that the acquisitions will need to get larger and larger (yet still be leveragable into the existing COUP business) to maintain the revenue growth.

When I did the analysis of CRM (Salesforce) a few months ago: https://discussion.fool.com/crm-a-case-study-for-saas-companies-…
I saw that CRM was also successful in making acquisitions. Making small acquisitions with cash or very limited dilution can be great; note, this is unlike what TWLO did: diluted themselves by something like 40% and added a much slower growth.

To summarize, I would think that COUP’s revenue growth would revert back to the organic growth level since both the added revenue from the acquisitions and the leveraging of the acquisitions into the COUP provide a one-time (not ongoing) growth boost.

Chris

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Cisco did this very thing all through the nineties. Acquiring companies using high priced shares seems to be a very effective way to grow.

Cisco obviously entered new product lines by doing this, but they would also acquire multiple vendors in one space.

When I look at Coupa’s acquisitions, they all seem to be made to spread out their offerings.

Their Exari acquisition for example takes them into Contract Lifecycle Management, where they will be competing directly with DocuSign, a much more established and focused company in that space.

It’s pretty clear as time goes on, even with reduced VC spending to bring more SaaS companies public, a day will come they will start bumping into each other.

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On the plus side; perhaps these small acquisitions that get bolted onto the COUP business management platform allows COUP to better execute the “land and expand” strategy with their existing clients while at the same time increasing their marketability to new clients, allowing them to land such clients in 2019 as: Cloudflare, International Flavors & Fragrances, Volkswagen, Waste Management, American Red Cross, MongoDB, Shopify

My point as an investor is that I do not see anything nefarious in terms of their reporting or business operations. If it is their intent to become a one-stop shop for business management solutions, then perhaps the acquisition of smaller companies with complimentary business management tools is a more effective solution than de novo. Through acquisition as opposed to de novo, there can be a first mover or first to market advantage.

The biggest downside I would see to this type of strategy is the distraction or perhaps drain it could become on Coupa Software’s corporate culture.

Long on COUP

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To summarize, I would think that COUP’s revenue growth would revert back to the organic growth level since both the added revenue from the acquisitions and the leveraging of the acquisitions into the COUP provide a one-time (not ongoing) growth boost.

The rolled-up acquisitions could (should!) actually increase the organic growth going forward. If the add-ons are growing at a higher rate of organic revenue growth then base Coupa revenue, then a year after acquisition the add-ons will help to increase the growth in revenue since the new revenue is now organic (starting in month 13).

Hypothetically, if Coupa is organically growing at 25% Y-O-Y and the add-ons are growing 50% Y-O-Y then in the 13th month the blended average organic growth of 25% and 50% will be larger then 25%.

Lee

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Hi Saul,

I am with you on not liking TWLO CEO approach… I exited TWLO as well (primarily because growth slowed and ofcourse didn’t like CEO trying to mislead)…

My point is what TWLO CEO did was an amateurish approach… someone used to run organic high growth company and found himself tempted to tout this one time event and made himself look silly and lose confidence of some investors like yourself…

In any case, in TWLO investor communications, it was not difficult to find impact of SEND acquisition… they had a line on organic growth spelled out.

COUP CEO on the other hand is more seasoned on doing seemingly tucking acquisitions and together add tremendous looking growth and yet get-by not showing the details of the impact… this to me is more dangerous to an investor… more likely to get systematically blind-sided for longer period.

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seemingly tucking acquisitions and together add tremendous looking growth and yet get-by not showing the details of the impact.

If the acquisitions are a separate, if complimentary line of business, it is reasonable to show the impact of the acquisition separately, at least for a while. But, if the acquisitions are folded into the core product, adding to its features and functionality and thus appeal, without being a separately orderable and priced product, then it is reasonable to not show the impact of the acquisition separately, but rather to show how it has increased total sales only.

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I exited TWLO as well (primarily because growth slowed and, of course, didn’t like CEO trying to mislead)… My point is what TWLO CEO did was an amateurish approach… someone used to run organic high growth company and found himself tempted to tout this one time event and made himself look silly and lose the confidence of some investors like yourself…

Yes, I have to ask myself, how come the CFO of TWLO didn’t step in on the press release and say, “No, we can’t say that. It’s not true and it looks like we are trying to fool people!” I have to conclude that either he/she was intimidated by the CEO and afraid to say anything to contradict him, or spoke up and was over-ruled by the CEO. Either way it undermines confidence in the company. Of course there is a third possibility: that the CEO has so withdrawn from the day-to-day events of the company that he was clueless that what he was saying was false.

Saul

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HCM, yes, every company that COUP acquires allows them to offer cross selling opportunities. The concern however is all these SaaS companies keep acquiring or building new offerings, and start competing with one another until everything is saturated. I am not of the position that SaaS is some unique, perpetual wealth generating business model. It’s going to saturate just like EVERY industry before it. I understand that SaaS is not an industry, but most of these companies can be categorized as “enterprise application software.” So that’s why it’s interesting to me what kind of companies COUP is buying, and who they will be competing with. It’s true, if you’re a COUP customer, you may very well use their Yapta service instead of a competing product by SAP. That’s the first thing I noticed when they announced this acquisition, they will be competing directly with what some considered the first SaaS company ever, Concur, which was acquired by SAP, which has a much, much larger customer base to sell into.

  1. DCR workforce sept 4 2018 approximately 27.5 annual rev
    Since this acquisition, Coupa has sold a part of DCR Workforce to a company called Workspend. Coupa sold DCR’s MSP business: A Managed Service Provider (MSP), also called a Management Service Provider, is a company that manages information technology services for other companies via the Web. An MSP client may use internal operations or an ASP to run its business functions.

From what I see, Coupa has no MSP offering. I would need to know more about this, but MSP sounds like a very heavy service-oriented offering. The fact that Coupa bought a company, and sold a portion of it to another firm, suggests to me that Coupa is not going around buying all these companies as an effort to grow sales, but to broaden it’s product offerings. A distinct difference. Per below, DCR was acquired to increase their strength in Services spend, rather than just physical goods.

Q: Who is DCR Workforce?
A: Based in Boca Raton, Fla., DCR Workforce is a leading provider of contingent workforce management and advanced services procurement software.

Coupa Services Maestro makes it easy to manage basic SOW-based services.

DCR Workforce augments Services Maestro.

DCR Workforce provides advanced contingent workforce and services management capabilities.

Q: Why did Coupa acquire DCR Workforce?
A: According to Forrester Research, on average, 58 percent of companies’ non-payroll spend is on services, yet businesses lack the visibility and control to ensure this spend is compliant and the best use of company dollars.

DCR Workforce will build upon Services Maestro to provide an advanced solution for the full lifecycle of the sourcing and management of contingent workers at scale within the Coupa BSM Platform.

Q: How big is the total addressable market (TAM) and market opportunity for Coupa?
A: According to Forrester Wave1: “Global spending on services procurement solutions will approach $700 million in 2018, primarily in the form of SaaS subscription fees.” More importantly, over $2.7 trillion was spent on human-based services in the U.S. in 2017.

The combination of Coupa and DCR Workforce is expansive by looking at both SOW-based and contingent labor spend.

1 Forrester WaveTM: Services Procurement, Q1 2017

Q: How will Coupa integrate DCR Workforce functionality into the Coupa BSM platform?
A: DCR Workforce will build upon Coupa Services Maestro, Coupa’s simple and foundational SOW-based services capability that enables companies to requisition, procure, and track delivery of services. DCR Workforce functionality will be unified into the Coupa BSM Platform to provide the world’s most comprehensive BSM platform that can seamlessly handle simple to complex services.

Q: What will the new offering be called?
A: The new offering will be called Coupa Contingent Workforce.

Q: How does DCR Workforce augment Coupa’s existing SOW-based offering (Coupa Services Maestro)?
A: Coupa Services Maestro makes it easy for anyone in your company to requisition, procure, and track delivery of basic SOW-based services.

DCR Workforce provides advanced capabilities, enabling you to source and manage contingent workers and complex services at scale. This involves sourcing the right contingent workers, procuring their services, and onboarding and offboarding them in an easy, secure, and compliant way.

  1. Aquiire oct 15 2018 apprximately 13 million annual rev
    This seems like nothing more than an ability to increase Coupa’s product offerings:
    Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP), a leader in business spend management (BSM), announced today that it has acquired Aquiire, the leader in real-time supplier catalog search. With 13 patents pending or issued, Aquiire extends Coupa’s capability to deliver a comprehensive business-to-business (B2B) shopping experience spanning real-time, cached, and localized catalog search.

Today, without real-time search capability, employees often waste precious time and productivity navigating catalogs across many different supplier websites to find the products they need. With Aquiire’s patented technology part of the Coupa BSM Platform, employees can get all the information they need across suppliers in real-time with one instant search. This instant search allows for real-time competitive shopping, which can lower price as well as improve overall employee productivity.

“Our goal is to transform how businesses manage spend. Our innovations combined with Aquiire provides the flexibility of real-time, cached, and localized search in the hands of every employee so they can spend smarter,” said Rob Bernshteyn, chief executive officer at Coupa. “I’m excited to welcome the Aquiire team to Coupa. Together, we will continue building the most comprehensive and user-centric BSM platform in the world and deliver real value to businesses everywhere.”

  1. Hiperos dec 10 2018 approximately 24 million annual rev
    Rather than copy paste a bunch of stuff here, Hiperos is focused on supplier side, to evaluate third party risk management. Again, something that strengthens Coupa’s offerings.
    https://www.coupa.com/newsworthy/press-releases/coupa-acquir…

  2. Exari may 7 2019 approximately 13 million annual rev
    With Exari, they are further going outside their BSM focus to get deeper into the CLM business, where they will compete with DocuSign, Adobe, and others. This is a very small, developing industry and there are no “gorillas” or billion dollar business in this space that I’m aware of. At the end of the day, they are going further outside their focus and will bring on a host of new competition however where they are not #1 at.

  3. Yapta jan 7 2020 approximately 13 million annual rev
    Here they are again targeting BSM but going into a competitive space. Here they will be competing with Concur, the gorilla of the space, which has since been acquired by SAP. Concur was acquired at $8.3 billion, and a $600 million annual revenue company growing at roughly 30% a year, a real high growth rate for the time (2014). I do not expect COUP’s Yapta business to be worth $8.3 billion alone or $600 million in revenue in any time in the next coming couple decades. Concur is already the first mover/established player.

Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP), a leader in Business Spend Management (BSM), announced today that it has acquired travel price optimization leader Yapta. The acquisition enables Coupa to deliver more value across BSM by empowering companies to achieve greater savings in a significant spend category, Travel & Expense (T&E).

So in summary all but the last 2 acquisitions seem bolt on, no real leader to compete with. They exited irrelevant business by selling those divisions. So I don’t see this as “buying revenue.”

OTOH, while the last two acquisitions are a further extension of existing businesses, they are going to be competing with larger, more established customers. The last one, very much so.

Which brings me to a point about Concur. Concur didn’t spend 60% of their sales on S&M. Many SaaS companies are doing that now. Coupa actually spent 39% of it’s revenue last quarter on S&M and grew revenues 50%, a number inflated by acquisitions. What happens when they stop spending? By that time when Coupa has to compete with DocuSign, Concur, and who knows who else by that point, are they going to begin eroding revenue? Concur grew revenue by 69% in Q1 2007 to $49 million, and they did it by spending 28% of their revenue on S&M expense. These SaaS companies today have to spend much, much more on S&M to grow sales by a smaller amount. Why is that? I get the whole “get there first” philosophy but it’s pretty odd that this current group of SaaS growth companies has to pump so much more money into S&M to grow sales as much as or less than their predecessors. It’s pretty easy to grow when you’re spending a lot of OPM.

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