Tysons low-code software firm Appian Corp. (NASDAQ: APPN) is stepping up its hiring spree as it looks to market its products differently.
Some of that hiring effort is being led by Appian’s new chief marketing officer, Denise Vu Broady, previously the global chief operating officer of the industry cloud organization at tech giant SAP, who is now heading up a long list of new marketing initiatives at Appian. Vu Broady joined in February.
“Like we said last quarter, we are aggressively hiring sales reps, marketing folks,” Appian CEO and co-founder Matt Calkins said in an earnings call Thursday. “We have a new CMO and software engineers, so we're going to continue to aggressively hire.”
The company saw revenue grow to $88.8 million in the first quarter, up 13% from $78.8 million during the first quarter of 2020, with all of the growth coming from subscriptions, as opposed to professional services, as Appian increasingly deemphasizes that part of the business, shifting it more toward partners. The company reported a net loss of $13.5 million, which widened slightly from $11.6 million during the first quarter of 2020 as operating expenses increased from $63 million to more than $75 million.
A large part of Appian's revenue growth stems from its federal business, which accounts for roughly 21% of its revenue and has grown 58% year-over-year. Calkins said on the call that its upcoming pipeline of new federal customers carries potential for further growth as well.
“Our federal solution is showing a lot of promise — in fact, maybe the most promise of all the solutions,” Calkins said. “I'm hopeful for a solid 2021 in the federal market. Also, state and local, where we've made some efforts lately to take our success on the road and see if we could do as well in state and local, as we've done in the federal space — and no results yet, but the early indications look good.”
The company’s strong performance come after an equally strong 2020. Appian's revenue grew to $304 million in 2020, up 17% from $260 million in 2019 and $226 million in 2018. In 2021, Appian expects revenue to grow to between $353 million and $355 million as companies continue to increase the speed at which they produce new applications, partly in response to the disruptions caused by Covid-19
“The business community recently faced its biggest disruption in decades. Organizations responded by adapting faster than they previously thought possible,” Calkins said. “Low code was an essential technology, enabling change and will remain essential, as businesses maintain a quick metabolism into the future.”
He said on the call that a key to the company's long-term growth is to build a stronger community of "affiliated individuals" and software developers around its products. Appian recently released a new “community edition” of its product, which is a free version of its software that anyone can download, and then pay later to build applications.
Appian specializes in low-code software, which means programs that take very little coding and users can drag and drop functions instead to build tools faster and in a more modular fashion.
“We're off to a hot start this year in building the community,” Calkins said. “We want our community to be easy to join.”
