Ben’s Portfolio update end of October 2025
Returns and portfolio holdings:
Portfolio Notes 2022 -15.6%* *Jul-Dec, since I started posting my portfolio. (For portfolio returns before I started posting on Saul’s, and before I had fully adopted my version of Saul’s investing approach, see one of my earlier recaps.) 2023 77.8% 2024 31.7% 2025 YTD Month Jan 9.1% 9.1% Feb 5.0% -3.7% Mar -10.4% -14.7% Apr -2.4% 8.8% May 19.6% 22.6% Jun 32.7% 11.0% Jul 33.5% 0.6% Aug 29.9% -2.7% Sep 34.2% 3.3% Oct 51.0% 12.5%
Time-stamp: October 31, after market close.
These are my current positions:
Oct 2025 Sep 2025 First buy* Cloudflare 23.3% 22.2% 11/2/2020 Nvidia 21.1% 21.9% 5/13/2020 Snowflake 14.2% 13.2% 2/8/2021 Crowdstrike 10.9% 11.1% 5/13/2020 Datadog 9.8% 9.6% 5/13/2020 Axon 8.2% 9.0% 4/2/2024 Zscaler 4.4% 4.5% 3/4/2021 Samsara 4.0% 4.2% 1/8/2024 Monday 3.1% 3.3% 9/13/2021 TradeDesk 0.9% 1.0% 5/13/2020
*held through today
Time-stamp: October 31, after market close.
Company comments
Crowdstrike:
Crowdstrike reported Fiscal Q2 2026 on 8/27/25. I recommend you re-read or put side-by-side my Q1 summary before the below update on their numbers, here: Ben’s Portfolio update end of June 2025. Overall, the Q2 results confirm and, in many cases, accelerate the trends from Q1, showing strong execution and reacceleration a quarter ahead of management’s original expectations.
Strong Falcon Flex Momentum and Performance:
The Falcon Flex program continued its rapid expansion and proved its ability to drive platform adoption and expansion revenue.
- Significant Customer Growth: The total number of Falcon Flex customers grew from 820+ in Q1 to over 1,000 in Q2.
- Accelerated Growth: The company added over 220 new Flex customers in the quarter. (Note: Q2 results highlighted customer count and record net new ARR rather than the “Falcon Flex account value” metric from Q1).
- Large Deal Sizes: The average Flex deal size remains strong at over $1 million in ending ARR.
- High Deployment Rate: The utilization rate remains high, with more than 75% of Flex contracts already deployed, showing customers are quickly adopting the platform.
- Massive "Reflex” Activity: The number of customers who exhausted their initial contracts and returned for more (“Reflexes”) grew from 39 in Q1 to over 100 in Q2. This 150%+ sequential increase demonstrates powerful customer satisfaction and rapid consumption, validating the model’s success.
- Proven Expansion: Management noted that “Reflex” deals are yielding a nearly 50% uplift in ending ARR for those customers, proving the program is a powerful expansion driver.
Clear Path to Reaccelerated ARR Growth:
The Q2 results show that the reacceleration of ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is happening faster than anticipated.
- Sequential Improvement in Q2: Management’s Q1 expectation was met and exceeded. Q2 delivered a record $221.1 million in net new ARR, beating expectations and marking a reacceleration a full quarter ahead of schedule.
- Meaningful Back-Half Acceleration: Conviction in H2 acceleration has increased. Management updated its guidance to reflect an expectation of at least 40% year-over-year growth in net new ARR for the back half of the fiscal year.
- Strategic Investments Bearing Fruit: This acceleration is being fueled by the new platform solutions. In Q2, the Next-Gen SIEM business was a standout, with ending ARR growing more than 95% year-over-year to over $430 million.
Deep Platform Adoption and Stickiness:
Platform consolidation remains a core strength, with customers adopting more modules.
- Multi-Module Usage: The adoption rate remains robust. As of Q2, 48% of subscription customers were using six or more modules.
- Deeper Adoption: Q2 data shows 33% of customers use seven or more modules, and 23% use eight or more.
Robust Partner-Sourced Pipeline:
The channel ecosystem continues to be a significant and consistent contributor to growth.
- Significant Channel Contribution: Partners sourced over 60% of new business in Q2, consistent with the 60% reported in Q1. This highlights a stable and highly effective go-to-market channel.
Transparent Handling of Customer Choice Program (CCP) Impact:
This topic was not a specific point of discussion in the Q2 FY2026 earnings report.
- No Q2 Update: The Q2 earnings materials did not provide a specific financial update on the CCP or its projected $10-15 million quarterly impact.
- Implied Focus Shift: This suggests the CCP was primarily a Q1 disclosure item. Management’s Q2 commentary focused on the company-wide record net new ARR and reacceleration, which includes any residual impacts from such programs.
Effective Navigation of Challenges (July 19th Incident Context)
My Q1 assessment was validated by the Q2 results. The company successfully navigated the aftermath of the July 19, 2024 incident.
- Confirmed Execution: The Q2 report (which covered the period ending July 31, 2025) confirmed that despite “one-time incident costs” impacting GAAP operating loss, the company’s underlying business momentum was exceptionally strong.
- Performance Despite Headwinds: Delivering a record Q2 net new ARR and achieving reacceleration ahead of schedule demonstrates management’s ability to execute and maintain customer trust, even while managing the financial and operational follow-up from the incident.
This is how Crowdstrike performed versus my prior expectations:
- Reported Fiscal Q2 2026 on 8/27/25.
- Revenue expectation: $1165M (5.6% QoQ, 20.9% YoY), implying a 1.5% beat this Q.
→ $1169M (5.9% QoQ, 21.3% YoY), a 2.2% beat. - Q3 new revenue guide: $1217M (4.5% QoQ, 20% YoY) which I would interpret as $1241M (6.5% QoQ, 23% YoY), assuming QoQ growth will accelerate slightly seasonally.
→ $1213M (3.8% QoQ, 20.1% YoY), which I now interpret as $1239M (6.0% QoQ, 22.7% YoY), implying a 2.2% beat. - Net new ARR of around $244M (26% QoQ and ARR +5.5% QoQ).
→ $221M (14.1% QoQ, and ARR +5.0% QoQ). - I would like to see around $7.07b RPO (4% QoQ, 44% YoY); cRPO around $3.68b (52% of RPO, 27% YoY).
→ $7.2b (5.9% QoQ, 46.9% YoY); cRPO was $3.744b (52% of RPO), growing 29.5% YoY. - I would like to see NRR greater or equal to 112%.
→ Q2 NRR will be reported in their next Q4 report. “Our dollar-based net retention rate continued to be strong as of July 31, 2025.” - I would like to see about $256M operating income.
→ $255M. - I would like to see about $235M net income.
→ $237M. - I would like to see no multi-product customer decline.
→ 6+ customers stayed at 48%, 7+ customers grew to 33% from 32% and 8+ customers grew to 23% from 22%. - I would like to see gross retention close to 97%.
→ no mention of gross retention rate. - Thoughts from previous Q: Ben’s Portfolio update end of June 2025
Samsara:
Samsara reported Fiscal Q2 2026 on 9/4/25. In short, Q2 was a “playbook” quarter for my thesis (here: Ben’s Portfolio update end of June 2025). As the law of large numbers takes effect, the revenue growth rate continues decelerating, but actually less than I had expected, which is great news. The company is successfully managing this deceleration by delivering powerful and accelerating profitability.
Samsara beat my revenue expectation of $387M (5.5% QoQ, 28.9% YoY), implying a 4% beat by delivering $391.5M (6.7% QoQ, 30.4% YoY), a 5.2% beat. Not only that, they also beat my expected Q3 guide, which I now interpret as $417M (6.5% QoQ, 29.5% YoY), implying a 4.5% beat and quite impressively, they raised their FY guide by 2.1%. With that my old outlook of achieving Q4 YoY revenue growth of 26% improved to 28% and my FY26 YoY revenue growth outlook improved to slightly above 29%, up from 28%.
In my last recap I also highlighted higher tariffs delaying customer purchases. The Q2 earnings call provided a clear and positive resolution to this: Management stated that all of the larger deals that were delayed in Q1 closed in Q2. They also explicitly noted that they “didn’t experience further tariff-related impact in the quarter.”
Regarding customers, they again didn’t provide a $1m+ ARR customer number, but stated “In Q2, we added 17 customers with more than $1 million in ARR, a quarterly record. Our $1 million-plus ARR customers cross the important milestone in Q2. They now generate more than 20% of our ARR or approximately $350 million.” That’s a very positive development, which I think compensates the weaker than I had expected $100k+ ARR customer growth (133 adds versus my expectation of 170 adds).
The other growth metrics were great: net new ARR of $105M (versus my expectation of $96M), RPO grew an astonishing 14.9% QoQ versus my expectation of 6% QoQ and cRPO grew 28.8% YoY versus my expectation of 27.5% YoY, while NRR stayed at 115%.
On the profitability side, Samsara continued their strong margin expansion: Operating margin grew to 15.2%, up from 5.8% last Q2, net margin grew to 17.8%, up from 8.7% last Q2 and FCF margin grew to 11.3%, up from 4.4% last Q2.
This is how Samsara performed versus my prior expectations:
- Reported Fiscal Q2 2026 on 9/4/25.
- Revenue expectation: $387M (5.5% QoQ, 28.9% YoY), implying a 4% beat.
→ $391.5M (6.7% QoQ, 30.4% YoY), a 5.2% beat. - Q3 new revenue guide: $395M (2% QoQ, 23% YoY) which I would interpret as $410M (6% QoQ, 27% YoY).
→ $399M (1.9% QoQ, 23.9% YoY), which I now interpret as $417M (6.5% QoQ, 29.5% YoY), implying a 4.5% beat. - I would like to see net new ARR around $96M.
→ $104.7M - I would like to see RPO around $2.92b (6% QoQ) and cRPO around $1.39b (27.5% YoY).
→ RPO was 3.166b (14.9% QoQ, 38% YoY), cRPO was 1.402b (28.8% YoY). - I would like to see core customer NRR around 115%.
→ $115M - I would like to see large customer NRR around 120%.
→ not given - I would like to see around 170 new $100k+ ARR customers (2808 total, 32.5% YoY) and around 130 total $1m+ ARR customers.
→ 133 new $100k+ ARR customers (2771 total, 30.7% YoY) and total $1m+ ARR customers numbers were not given. - I would like to see around $67M operating income, corresponding to a 17.3% operating margin.
→ $59.7M operating income, a 15.2% margin.` - Thoughts from previous Q: Ben’s Portfolio update end of June 2025
Expectations for upcoming earnings
In the following I summarize my expectations for the companies reporting this earnings season. The goal of this exercise is to come up with reasonable earnings expectations. The goal here is not to be absolutely accurate, but to be able to identify when a company surprises in either a good or a bad way. That way it will be easier for me to identify if a change in conviction level is warranted. Also, just because a company exceeds or performs below my expectation with a single metric, that doesn’t necessarily mean my conviction has to change. Really, what this exercise does is it helps me to think about my companies holistically. Therefore, I think it is valuable to come up with these expectations before they report as it will help me to keep the companies (and myself) accountable and minimize any cognitive bias once the results are out.
A practical way for me to come up with those numbers is by asking a couple questions. For example “what revenue growth rate would continue the trends the company is currently following?” (Looking at revenue growth trends AND other metrics.) And then when I have a number in mind, I ask myself “If the company reaches less than this number, would I be negatively surprised?“; “If the company reaches more than this number, would I be positively surprised?” If the answer is yes to both questions I write it down below. Same goes for all other quantitative metrics below.
Cloudflare:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2025 on 10/30/25.
- Revenue expectation: $555M (8.3% QoQ, 29.0% YoY), implying a 2.0% beat.
- Q4 new revenue guide: $583M (5% QoQ, 27% YoY) which I would interpret as $594M (7% QoQ, 29% YoY) YoY growth rate to stay roughly at 29%.
- I would like to see NRR at 114%.
- I would like to see total customer growth around 5% QoQ (~13300 net adds).
- I would like to see large customer growth around 5.5% QoQ (~204 net adds).
- I would like to see RPO grow around 6% QoQ to $2.1b.
- I would like to see cRPO grow around 6% QoQ to $1.38b.
- I would like to see operating income around $84M.
- I would like to see a FCF margin in-between 7% and 10%.
Nvidia:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2026 on 11/19/25.
- Revenue expectation: $55350M (18.4% QoQ, 58% YoY), implying a 2.5% beat; they beat a year ago’s Q1 guide by 8.5%, Q2 guide by 7.3%, Q3 guide by 7.9% and Q4 guide by 4.9%. Then last Q1 guide by only 2.5% and their Q2 guide by 3.9%.
- Q4 new revenue guide: $58394M (5.5% QoQ, 48% YoY) which I would interpret as $59778M (8% QoQ, 52% YoY), expecting slight YoY deceleration.
- I would like to see GAAP gross margin above 73.3%.
- I would like to see non-GAAP gross margin above 73.5%.
Snowflake:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2026 around 11/19/25.
- Product revenue expectation: $1178M (8% QoQ, 30.8% YoY), implying a 4.5% beat; $88M net new product revenue.
- Q4 new product revenue guide: $1190M (1% QoQ, 26% YoY) which I would interpret as $1237M (5% QoQ, 31% YoY), implying a 4% beat and that revenue growth will be roughly stable YoY.
- NRR around 125%.
- I would like to see RPO around $7.35b and cRPO around $3.67b, corresponding to 28% YoY growth; note: this is a tough comp this quarter and expect RPO and, more importantly cRPO to accelerate to around 40% YoY in Q4.
- I would like to see total customer growth around 4% QoQ (~482 adds) and $1M+ customer growth around 5% QoQ (~33 adds).
- I would like to see stable edge customer growth very roughly around 8.6% QoQ (~413 adds) and market place listings growth very roughly around 5.5% (~187 adds) and AI adoption to reach about 53% of customers.
- I would like to see continued strength in profitability margins, with OM ~11.5%, NM ~12%, FCFM ~30%.
- Detailed thoughts: Ben’s Portfolio update end of September 2025
Datadog:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2025 on 11/6/25 before the market opens.
- Revenue expectation: $883M (6.8% QoQ, 28% YoY), implying a 4.0% beat.
- Q4 new revenue guide: $912M (3.3% QoQ, 24% YoY) which I would interpret as $943M (6.8% QoQ, 28% YoY) expecting YoY growth will stay close to 28%.
- My Q3 revenue expectation implies about $56M raw sequential revenue increase (up from $45M last Q3).
- I would like to see RPO at around $2.55b (5% QoQ, 40% YoY growth).
- I would like to see QoQ customer growth around 2.1% (~650 new) and for the $100k+ cohort, around 3% QoQ (~116 new).
- I would like to see continued multi-product adoption progress with 2+, 4+, 6+ and 8+ products cohort percentages to stay stable at 83%, 52%, 29% and 14%.
- I would like to see NRR around 120%.
- I would like to see OM ~20%, NM ~25%, FCFM ~25%.
- Detailed thoughts: Ben’s Portfolio update end of August 2025
Zscaler:
- Reporting Fiscal Q1 2026 around 12/03/25.
- Revenue expectation: $787M (9.4% QoQ, 25.3% YoY), expectation from billings model and implying a 1.8% beat.
- Q2 new revenue guide: $811M (3% QoQ, 25% YoY) which I would interpret as $825M (4.8% QoQ, 27% YoY) as my expectation from billings model, assuming Q1 QoQ billings decline of -44% (seasonal!)
- I would like to see Q1 billings of around $673M (-44% QoQ, seasonal!).
- I would like to see RPO growth of around 0% QoQ (at $5.8b) and cRPO of about $2.7b.
- I would like to see >100k ARR customer growth around 2.9% QoQ (~100 net adds).
- I would like to see >1M ARR customer growth around 4.5% QoQ (~30 net adds).
- I would like to see an operating income around $173M (22.0% margin).
- Detailed thoughts: Ben’s Portfolio update end of September 2025.
Crowdstrike:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2026 around 11/25/25.
- Revenue expectation: $1239M (6% QoQ, 22.6% YoY), implying a 2.2% beat this Q.
- Q4 new revenue guide: $1289M (4% QoQ, 22% YoY) which I would interpret as $1313M (6% QoQ, 24% YoY), assuming roughly stable QoQ growth.
- Net new ARR of around $237M (7.4% QoQ and ARR +5.1% QoQ).
- I would like to see around $7.92b RPO (10% QoQ, 47% YoY); cRPO around $4.0b (51% of RPO, 31% YoY).
- I would like to see NRR greater or equal to 115%.
- I would like to see about $286M operating income.
- I would like to see about $267M net income.
- I would like to see no multi-product customer decline.
- I would like to see gross retention close to 97%.
- Detailed thoughts earlier in this recap.
Monday:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2025 on 10/10/25 before the market open.
- Revenue expectation: $319M (6.85% QoQ, 27.1% YoY), implying a 2.4% beat.
- Q4 new revenue guide: $332M (4% QoQ, 24% YoY) which I would interpret as $340M (6.5% QoQ, 27% YoY).
- I would like to see raw sequential revenue increase around $20.5M. (It then should be in-between $20-21M for Q4).
- I would like to see more than 62950 customers with 10+ users (~1140 net adds), around 3924 customers in the $50k+ cohort (222 net adds) and around 1575 customers in the $100k+ cohort (103 net adds).
- I would like to see CRM accounts growth around 10% QoQ (to 36827, 3348 net adds).
- I would like to see Dev accounts growth around 8.6% QoQ (to 5073, 400 net adds).
- I would like to see Service accounts growth around 35% QoQ (to 1361, 353 net adds).
- I would like to see that NRR greater or equal to 112%, NRR10+ >=115%, NRR50k >=116% and NRR100k >=117%.
- I would like to see operating margin around 14.7% (~$47M operating income), net margin around 19% and FCF margin around 30% with FCF of around $96M.
- Detailed thoughts: Ben’s Portfolio update end of August 2025
Samsara:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2026 around 12/4/25.
- Revenue expectation: $417M (6.5% QoQ, 29.5% YoY), implying a 4.5% beat.
- Q4 new revenue guide: $425M (2% QoQ, 23% YoY) which I would interpret as $444M (6.5% QoQ, 28% YoY).
- I would like to see net new ARR around $102M.
- I would like to see RPO around $3.36b (6% QoQ) and cRPO around $1.48b (27.8% YoY).
- I would like to see core customer NRR around 115%.
- I would like to see large customer NRR around 120%.
- I would like to see around 250 new $100k+ ARR customers (3020 total, 31.8% YoY) and more than 136 total $1m+ ARR customers (wasn’t reported the last couple quarters).
- I would like to see around $76M operating income, corresponding to a 18.3% operating margin.
- Detailed thoughts earlier in this recap.
The Trade Desk:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2025 on 11/6/25.
- Revenue expectation: $746M (18.8% QoQ, 7.5% YoY), implying a 4.1% beat.
- I would like to see a net margin of around 33.5% and $250M net income.
Axon:
- Reporting Fiscal Q3 2025 on 11/4/25.
- Revenue expectation: $725M (8.5% QoQ, 33.2% YoY), assuming similar QoQ growth as last Q3.
- Q4 revenue expectation: $765M (5.5% QoQ, 33% YoY), assuming similar QoQ growth as last Q4
- I would like to see around $95M net new ARR.
- I would like to see RPO around $11.5b.
- I would like to see NRR around 123-124%.
- I would like to see gross margin greater than 60.4%.
- I would like to see adjusted EBITDA around $190M.
- Detailed thoughts: Ben’s Portfolio update end of August 2025
Wrap up
This portfolio recap is going out a little later than I wanted it to go out as several companies already reported, but I made up my prior expectations of all of the above companies before October 30, when Cloudflare reported an absolutely stunning quarter - more on that in my next recap. In any case, I am wishing you all a great rest of November and success for the companies that are yet due to report earnings this season.
Ben
Past recaps
2022: Jul 2022 | Aug 2022 | Sep 2022 | Oct 2022 | Nov 2022 | Dec 2022
2023: Jan 2023 | Feb 2023 | Mar 2023 | Apr 2023 | May 2023 | Jun 2023 | Jul 2023 | Aug 2023 | Sep 2023 | Oct 2023 | Nov 2023 | Dec 2023
2024: Jan 2024 | Feb 2024 | Mar 2024 | Apr 2024 | May 2024 | Jun 2024 | Jul 2024 | Aug 2024 | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Dec 2024
2025: Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | Mar 2025 | Apr 2025 | May 2025 | Jun 2025 | Jul 2025 | Aug 2025 | Sep 2025