Years ago I watched a movie called The 13th Warrior. The gist of the movie was that a mysterious
enemy was plaguing a smallish Viking village and needed help. So a band of 12 Vikings + Anterio
Banderos - as some sort of banished Arab I think - joined together to trek to the village to save the day. At one point in the movie the Vikings posted a lookout on a tower as sort of an early warning system should the bad guys attack. Only the sentry decided being in the tower was too exposed and so he rigged up a early day zip line and hung out in a tree. Anyway - when at last he saw the mysterious enemy coming - he used the rope zip line to slide over to the tower where he took a really
big hammer and smacked a huge metal gong to alert the village of the impending danger. The original
film trailer is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYUBKcurY88
Since then, Critical Event Management (CEM) has come a long way: Enter EVERBRIDGE - EVBG.
EVBG is an SaaS company with software solutions that allows organizations to automatically identify,
control, and respond to crisis events. As far as I can tell, they don’t use watch towers, zip lines
or really big hammers to bang metal gongs. The company went public in September 2016 and the stock closed the first day of trading around $15.25. In 28 months it has managed to more than triple to its current price of -as of the close today, $57.85. A few salient data points:
Current Price: $57.85
52 Week Range: $29.56/63.00
Market Cap: $1.7B
P/S: 12.6
The stock is about 8% Below its 52 WK High
A few more salient - for some folks - data points from IBD Stock Checkup:
Composite Rating: 65 This score is sort of in the Oh-Poop range I think.
EPS Rating: 2 This is decidedly not all that good.
Relative Strength: 97 This is where Everbridge begins to shine
SMR Rating: D Not all that sure what an SMR score is or means but this can’t be good
ACC/DIS Rating: C I think this means someone is buying the stock
Note: there is a lot of other detail in the IBD stuff but the one thing that caught my eye
was the fact that the company has had 8 QTRS of increasing Fund Ownership. That has to
be good. Right?
Why Consider: They are SaaS and the revenue growth has been solid. The last four (4) earning
reports featured the following revenue growth evolution: 42.5%; 43.1%; 33.5% and 37.1%, respectively.
The most recent earnings announcement and Conf Call Transcript here:
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3405407-everbridge-beats-0_02-…
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4218520
Note: The company has exceeded guidance on every QTRLY report since going public
Conf Call Highlights:
- Customers grew by 29% Y/Y
- Dollar Based Retention steady in the mid 90% range
- Net Retention over 110%
- New Products contributed 50% of growth
- Average Sales Price grew to $55,000 representing 33% Y/Y
- International Revenue Accelerated to 20%: Increased by 150% Y/Y
- New contracts with: The City of Nashville; Ohio Emergency Mgmt; the Indiana National Guard
EVBG has contracts with the top 25 busiest U.S. airports, a large number of the busiest port
authorities including New York, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia, and Ontario. They also
added the Massachusetts (sp?) Bay Transit Authority; and leading airports in Nashville, New Orleans,
and Anchorage - all in the QTR.
In the Qtr they landed contracts in Health Care in El Paso; the 6th largest bank in Spain; and numerous government agencies across the globe including the entire country of Norway, and contracts with organizations in The Netherlands and Sweden.
I could go on for a bit but it would just be regurgitating whats in the Conf Call Transcript that you can review for yourself by clicking on the conveniently provided link above. For one last example of their progress they have received their FEDRAMP authorization and signed several deals: they believe their TAM for the U.S. Government alone could be as high as $1B. They initiated contracts with the Department of Agriculture, The Postal Service, and the U.S Army.
You read all that and surmise that these guys must be stuffing the bank accounts; alas, not so fast.
Interestingly in life there are many many things you can fake - however, actual cash in the bank is not one of them. Its there - or its not. So these guys aren’t profitable - yet. Which leads me to a number of Oh-Poops. (I have a proprietary stock analysis system that revolves around quantified
Ying and Yang factors which I have developed myself over many years of trial and error: Atta Boys/Girls and Oh-Poops. Without going into the intricate detail of how I arrived at this rating system - suffice to understand that having a great many of Atta Boys/Girls is much better than
having a large number of Oh-Poops.)
To this point we see a lot, an entire wheelbarrow full, of Atta Boys/Girls that place Everbridge in a
very enticing and promising light. But now we come to the Oh Poops.
Oh Poops: This is a small company in a promising but small niche. There are a lot of competitors
and not sure I see much of a moat. I ask the question rhetorically: Is EVBG nothing more than
a somewhat more sophisticated hammer and gong alert system? Can it be easily copied/replicated
and/or replaced by the next evolution in CEM? Don’t know but much smarter folks than me will figure that out. Lastly, exactly how big is their TAM? And on that answer hinges the thesis for any investment.
Conclusion: I really like what they do and their huge percentage of growing contract wins is very very impressive. They also Raised their Guidance for the next Qtr. Haven’t decided to invest anything just yet but perhaps watching for the next few QTRS unless I decide not to.
Additional Input Appreciated