It took more than luck for identity management firm Okta (NASDAQ: Okta) to grow fourth quarter subscription revenue by 53 percent and full year subscription revenue by 57 percent for fiscal year 2019 for the period ended January 31, 2019. Among the quarter’s highlights are total revenue of $115.5 million, a 50 percent increase year-over-year. Subscription revenue was $108.5 million, representing 94 percent of total revenue. The balance of revenue comes from professional services and “other” revenue. Full year revenue was $399 million, a 56 percent increase year-over-year.

“We’re pleased to close out a strong fourth quarter and fiscal year thanks to our relentless execution and focus on customer success, which is demonstrated by 53 percent subscription revenue growth and 50 percent growth in customers with over $100,000 annual recurring revenue in Q4,” said Todd McKinnon, Okta CEO, in a March 7 news release.

“Large customers are increasingly turning to Okta as the identity standard for both their workforce and customers. The Okta Identity Cloud is uniquely positioned to both help organizations realize their digital transformation initiatives and adopt a Zero Trust security posture. We are seeing Okta’s early platform investments paying off and we’ll continue to make investments there and in the Okta Integration Network to capture the immense opportunity ahead,” added McKinnon.

Other highlights for the quarter include:

• GAAP operating loss was $27.7 million, or 24.0 percent of total revenue, compared to $23.7 or 30.8 percent of total revenue in Q4 FY18.
• GAAP net loss was $30.8 million, or $0.28 per share, compared to $23.0 million, or $0.23 per share, in Q4 FY 2018.
• Net cash from operations was $10.1 million, or 8.8 percent or revenue
• Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments were $563.8 million as of January 31, 2019.

Other highlights for fiscal year 2019 include:

• GAAP operating loss was $119.6 million, or 30.0 percent of total revenue, compared to $111.9 or 43.6 percent of total revenue for fiscal year 2018.
• GAAP net loss was $125.5 million, or $1.17 per share, compared to $109.8 million, or $1.32 per share, for fiscal year 2018.
• Net cash from operations was $15.2 million.

Okta provided the following financial outlook for fiscal year 2020:

• Total revenue between $530 million to $535 million, representing growth between 33 percent and 34 percent
• Non-GAAP operating loss between $69.0 million and $63.0 million
• Non-GAAP net loss per share of $0.53 to $0.45, based on 115 million outstanding shares

Also, last week, Okta revealed its plans to acquire Azuqua to improvement its lifecycle management product for $52.5 million. Azuqua offers a no-code integration platform for automating workflows. The deal is expected to close in Okta’s first quarter of fiscal year 2010, reports ZDNet.

Okta beat revenue estimates but suffered higher net losses than expected.  

Insider Take:

Okta is a SaaS provider in growth mode in a very critical industry – data security. It is seeing big revenue increases, which indicates demand for their services is growing, especially with enterprise customers. We expect this growth to continue as Okta acquires partners who complement or support their products and as the company continues to invest in infrastructure, staff and other resources to support their path forward.