CrowdStrike Holdings 10-Q 2023-10-31

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

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FORM 10-Q

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(Mark One)

For the quarterly period ended October 31, 2023

OR

For the transition period from to

Commission File Number: 001-38933

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CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS, INC.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

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206 E. 9th Street, Suite 1400, Austin, Texas 78701

(Address of principal executive offices)

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Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (888) 512-8906

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Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files) Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☑

As of November 15, 2023, the number of shares of the registrant’s Class A common stock outstanding was 227,629,218, and the number of shares of the registrant’s Class B common stock outstanding was 12,515,590.

CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS, INC.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding our future operating results and financial position, our business strategy and plans and our objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “potentially,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “could,” “would,” “project,” “plan,” “expect” and similar expressions that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements concerning the following:

• our future financial performance, including our expectations regarding our revenue, cost of revenue, gross profit or gross margin, operating expenses (including changes in sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses), and our ability to achieve, and maintain, future profitability;

• market acceptance of our cloud platform;

• the effects of increased competition in our markets and our ability to compete effectively;

• our ability to maintain the security and availability of our cloud platform;

• our ability to maintain and expand our customer base, including by attracting new customers;

• our ability to develop new solutions, or enhancements to our existing solutions, and bring them to market in a timely manner;

• anticipated trends, growth rates and challenges in our business and in the markets in which we operate;

• the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations, financial results, and liquidity and capital resources, including on customers, sales, expenses, and employees;

• our business plan and our ability to effectively manage our growth and associated investments;

• beliefs and objectives for future operations;

• our relationships with third parties, including channel partners and technology alliance partners;

• our ability to maintain, protect and enhance our intellectual property rights;

• our ability to successfully defend litigation brought against us;

• our ability to successfully expand in our existing markets and into new markets;

• sufficiency of cash and cash equivalents to meet cash needs for at least the next 12 months;

• anticipated developments relating to our valuation allowances for our deferred tax assets;

• our ability to expand internationally;

• our ability to comply with laws and regulations that currently apply or become applicable to our business both in the United States and internationally;

• our ability to develop, maintain, and improve our internal control over financial reporting;

• macroeconomic factors, including inflation and instability in the global credit and financial markets;

• our ability to successfully close and integrate acquisitions to contribute to our growth objectives; and

• the attraction and retention of qualified employees and key personnel.

These statements are based on our current plans, estimates and projections in light of information currently available to us. These forward-looking statements may be affected by risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including under “Risk Factors.” Furthermore, new risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is impossible for us to predict all risks and uncertainties or how they may affect us. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialize, our business, revenue and financial results could be harmed, and the trading price of our Class A common stock could decline. Forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q speak only as of the date on which such statements are made, and we undertake no obligation to update them in light of new information or future events, except as required by law.

We intend to announce material information to the public through the CrowdStrike Investor Relations website ir.crowdstrike.com, SEC filings, press releases, public conference calls, and public webcasts. We use these channels, as well as social media and our blog, to communicate with our investors, customers, and the public about our company, our offerings, and other issues. It is possible that the information we post on social media and our blog could be deemed to be material information. As such, we encourage investors, the media, and others to follow the channels listed above, including the social media channels listed on our investor relations website, and to review the information disclosed through such channels. Any updates to the list of disclosure channels through which we will announce information will be posted on the investor relations page on our website.

Summary of Risk Factors

Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, any one of which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects. Below is a summary of some of these risks. This summary is not complete, and should be read together with the entire section titled “Risk Factors” in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, as well as the other information in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and the other filings that we make with the SEC.

• We have experienced rapid growth in recent periods, and if we do not manage our future growth, our business and results of operations will be adversely affected.

• We have a history of losses, and while we have achieved profitability in quarterly periods, we may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability in the future.

• If organizations do not adopt cloud-based SaaS-delivered endpoint security solutions, our ability to grow our business and results of operations may be adversely affected.

• If we are unable to successfully enhance our existing products and services and introduce new products and services in response to rapid technological changes and market developments as well as evolving security threats, our competitive position and prospects will be harmed.

• If we are unable to attract new customers, our future results of operations could be harmed.

• If our customers do not renew their subscriptions for our products and add additional cloud modules to their subscriptions, our future results of operations could be harmed.

• Our sales cycles can be long and unpredictable, and our sales efforts require considerable time and expense,

• We face intense competition and could lose market share to our competitors, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

• If our solutions fail or are perceived to fail to detect or prevent incidents or have or are perceived to have defects, errors, or vulnerabilities, our brand and reputation would be harmed, which would adversely affect our business and results of operations.

• As a cybersecurity provider, we have been, and expect to continue to be, a target of cyberattacks. If our internal networks, systems, or data are or are perceived to have been breached, our reputation may be damaged and our financial results may be negatively affected.

• We rely on third-party data centers, such as Amazon Web Services, and our own colocation data centers, to host and operate our Falcon platform, and any disruption of or interference with our use of these facilities may negatively affect our ability to maintain the performance and reliability of our Falcon platform, which could cause our business to suffer.

• We rely on our key technical, sales and management personnel to grow our business, and the loss of one or more key employees could harm our business.

• If we are unable to attract and retain qualified personnel, our business could be harmed.

• Our results of operations may fluctuate significantly, which could make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our results of operations to fall below expectations.

• Claims by others that we infringe their proprietary technology or other intellectual property rights could result in significant costs and substantially harm our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

• If we are not able to comply with applicable data protection, security, privacy, and other government- and industry-specific laws, regulations, standards or requirements, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be harmed.

• Future acquisitions, strategic investments, partnerships, or alliances could be difficult to identify and integrate, divert the attention of key management personnel, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value, and adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

PART I. FINANCIAL INFORMATION

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.

Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets

(in thousands, except per share data)

(unaudited)

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these condensed consolidated financial statements.

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations

(in thousands, except per share data)

(unaudited)

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The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the condensed consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2023, filed with the SEC. Some of the information contained in this discussion and analysis or set forth elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including information with respect to our plans and strategy for our business, includes forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described under the heading Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements following the Table of Contents of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. You should review the disclosure under Part II, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in the following discussion and analysis.

Overview

Founded in 2011, CrowdStrike reinvented cybersecurity for the cloud era and transformed the way cybersecurity is delivered and experienced by customers. When we started CrowdStrike, cyberattackers had an asymmetric advantage over legacy cybersecurity products that could not keep pace with the rapid changes in adversary tactics. We took a fundamentally different approach to solve this problem with the CrowdStrike Falcon platform – the first, true cloud-native platform capable of harnessing vast amounts of security and enterprise data to deliver highly modular solutions through a single lightweight agent. Our pioneering platform approach keeps customers ahead of attackers by automatically detecting and preventing threats to stop breaches.

We believe our approach has defined a new category called the Security Cloud, which has the power to transform the cybersecurity industry the same way the cloud has transformed the customer relationship management, human resources, and service management industries. Using cloud-scale AI, our Security Cloud enriches and correlates trillions of cybersecurity events per week with indicators of attack, threat intelligence, and enterprise data (including data from across endpoints, workloads, identities, DevOps, IT assets, and configurations) to create actionable data, identify shifts in adversary tactics, and automatically prevent threats in real-time across our customer base. The more data that is fed into our Falcon platform, the more intelligent our Security Cloud becomes, and the more our customers benefit, creating a powerful network effect that increases the overall value we provide.

Our Go-To-Market Strategy

We sell subscriptions to our Falcon platform and cloud modules to organizations across multiple industries. We primarily sell subscriptions to our Falcon platform and cloud modules through our direct sales team that leverages our network of channel partners. Our direct sales team is comprised of field sales and inside sales professionals who are segmented by a customer’s number of endpoints.

We have a low friction land-and-expand sales strategy. When customers deploy our Falcon platform, they can start with any number of cloud modules and easily add additional cloud modules. Once customers experience the benefits of our Falcon platform, they often expand their adoption over time by adding more endpoints or purchasing additional modules. We also use our sales team to identify current customers who may be interested in free trials of additional cloud modules, which serves as a powerful driver of our land-and-expand model. By segmenting our sales teams, we can deploy a low-touch sales model that efficiently identifies prospective customers.

We began as a solution for large enterprises, but the flexibility and scalability of our Falcon platform has enabled us to seamlessly offer our solution to customers of any size. We have expanded our sales focus to include any sized organization without the need to modify our Falcon platform for small and medium sized businesses.

A substantial majority of our customers purchase subscriptions with a term of one year. Our subscriptions are generally priced on a per-endpoint and per-module basis. We recognize revenue from our subscriptions ratably over the term of the subscription. We also generate revenue from our incident response and proactive professional services, which are generally priced on a time and materials basis. We view our professional services business primarily as an opportunity to cross-sell subscriptions to our Falcon platform and cloud modules.

Certain Factors Affecting Our Performance

Adoption of Our Solutions. We believe our future success depends in large part on the growth in the market for cloud-based SaaS-delivered endpoint security solutions. Many organizations have not yet abandoned the on-premise legacy products in which they have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to design and maintain. As a result, it is difficult to predict customer adoption rates and demand for our cloud-based solutions.

New Customer Acquisition. Our future growth depends in large part on our ability to acquire new customers. If our efforts to attract new customers are not successful, our revenue and rate of revenue growth may decline. We believe that our go-to-market strategy and the flexibility and scalability of our Falcon platform allow us to rapidly expand our customer base. Our incident response and proactive services also help drive new customer acquisitions, as many of these professional services customers subsequently purchase subscriptions to our Falcon platform. Many organizations have not yet adopted cloud-based security solutions, and since our Falcon platform has offerings for organizations of all sizes, worldwide, and across industries, we believe this presents a significant opportunity for growth.

Maintain Customer Retention and Increase Sales. Our ability to increase revenue depends in large part on our ability to retain our existing customers and increase the ARR of their subscriptions. We focus on increasing sales to our existing customers by expanding their deployments to more endpoints and selling additional cloud modules for increased functionality. Over time we have transitioned our platform from a single offering into highly-integrated offerings of multiple cloud modules.

Invest in Growth. We believe that our market opportunity is large and requires us to continue to invest significantly in sales and marketing efforts to further grow our customer base, both domestically and internationally. Our open cloud architecture and single data model have allowed us to rapidly build and deploy new cloud modules, and we expect to continue investing in those efforts to further enhance our technology platform and product functionality. In addition to our ongoing investment in research and development, we may also pursue acquisitions of businesses, technologies, and assets that complement and expand the functionality of our Falcon platform, add to our technology or security expertise, or bolster our leadership position by gaining access to new customers or markets. Furthermore, we expect our general and administrative expenses to increase in dollar amount for the foreseeable future given the additional expenses for accounting, compliance, and investor relations as we grow as a public company.

Key Metrics

We monitor the following key metrics to help us evaluate our business, identify trends affecting our business, formulate business plans, and make strategic decisions.

Annual Recurring Revenue (“ARR”)

ARR is calculated as the annualized value of our customer subscription contracts as of the measurement date, assuming any contract that expires during the next 12 months is renewed on its existing terms.

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There have been no material changes to our market risks during the three and nine months ended October 31, 2023 compared to our disclosures in Part II, Item 7A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2023.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

We maintain “disclosure controls and procedures,” as defined in Rule 13a–15(e) and Rule 15d–15(e) under the Exchange Act that are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, has evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of October 31, 2023. Based on such evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of October 31, 2023, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of such date, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level.

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

There was no change in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rule 13a-15(d) and Rule 15d-15(d) of the Exchange Act that occurred during the period covered by this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Inherent Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls

A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Inherent limitations in all control systems include the realities that judgments in decision making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of a simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people or by management override of the controls. The design of any system of controls also is based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions; over time, controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may deteriorate. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost–effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.

PART II. OTHER INFORMATION

ITEM 1. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

We are currently a party to, and may from time to time in the future be involved in, various litigation matters and subject to claims that arise in the ordinary course of business, including claims asserted by third parties in the form of letters and other communications. For information regarding legal proceedings and other claims in which we are involved, see Note 8, “Commitments and Contingencies” in our Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements in Part I, Item 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

For any claims for which we believe a liability is both probable and reasonably estimable, we record a liability in the period for which it makes this determination. There is no pending or threatened legal proceeding to which we are a party that, in our opinion, is likely to have a material adverse effect on our business and our condensed consolidated financial statements; however, the results of litigation and claims are inherently unpredictable. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on our business because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources, and other factors. In addition, the expense of litigation and the timing of this expense from period to period are difficult to estimate, subject to change and could adversely affect our condensed consolidated financial statements.

A description of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business is set forth below. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, as well as the other information in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including our condensed consolidated financial statements and the related notes and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” The occurrence of any of the events or developments described below, or of additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial, could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and growth prospects. In such an event, the market price of our Class A common stock could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

We have experienced rapid growth in recent periods, and if we do not manage our future growth, our business and results of operations will be adversely affected.

We have experienced rapid revenue growth in recent periods and we expect to continue to invest broadly across our organization to support our growth. For example, our headcount grew from 3,394 employees as of January 31, 2021, to 7,745 employees as of October 31, 2023. Although we have experienced rapid growth historically, we may not sustain our current growth rates and our investments to support our growth may not be successful. The growth and expansion of our business will require us to invest significant financial and operational resources and the continuous dedication of our management team. Our future success will depend in part on our ability to manage our growth effectively, which will require us to, among other things:

• effectively attract, integrate, and retain a large number of new employees, particularly members of our sales and marketing and research and development teams;

• further improve our Falcon platform, including our cloud modules, and IT infrastructure, including expanding and optimizing our data centers, to support our business needs;

• enhance our information and communication systems to ensure that our employees and offices around the world are well coordinated and can effectively communicate with each other and our growing base of channel partners and customers; and

• improve our financial, management, and compliance systems and controls.

If we fail to achieve these objectives effectively, our ability to manage our expected growth, ensure uninterrupted operation of our Falcon platform and key business systems, and comply with the rules and regulations applicable to our business could be impaired. Additionally, the quality of our platform and services could suffer and we may not be able to adequately address competitive challenges. Any of the foregoing could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

We have a history of losses, and while we have achieved profitability in quarterly periods, we may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability in the future.

We have incurred net losses each year since our inception, and we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future. We experienced net losses of $183.2 million, $234.8 million, and $92.6 million for fiscal 2023, fiscal 2022, and fiscal 2021, respectively. As of October 31, 2023, we had an accumulated deficit of $1.1 billion. While we have experienced significant growth in revenue in recent periods, and have achieved profitability during quarterly periods, we cannot assure you when or whether we will reach sustained profitability. We also expect our operating expenses to increase in the future as we continue to invest for our future growth, which will negatively affect our results of operations if our total revenue does not increase. We cannot assure you that these investments will result in substantial increases in our total revenue or improvements in our results of

operations. We also have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant additional legal, accounting, and other expenses as a public company. Any failure to increase our revenue as we invest in our business or to manage our costs could prevent us from achieving or maintaining profitability or positive cash flow.

If organizations do not adopt cloud-based SaaS-delivered endpoint security solutions, our ability to grow our business and results of operations may be adversely affected.

We believe our future success will depend in large part on the growth, if any, in the market for cloud-based SaaS-delivered endpoint security solutions. The use of SaaS solutions to manage and automate security and IT operations is at an early stage and rapidly evolving. As such, it is difficult to predict its potential growth, if any, customer adoption and retention rates, customer demand for our solutions, customer consolidation on our platform, or the success of existing competitive products. Any expansion in our market depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance, and perceived value associated with our solutions and those of our competitors. If our solutions do not achieve widespread adoption or there is a reduction in demand for our solutions due to a lack of customer acceptance, technological challenges, competing products, privacy concerns, decreases in corporate spending, weakening economic conditions or otherwise, it could result in early terminations, reduced customer retention rates, or decreased revenue, any of which would adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial results. We do not know whether the trend in adoption of cloud-based SaaS-delivered endpoint security solutions we have experienced in the past will continue in the future. Furthermore, if we or other SaaS security providers experience security incidents, loss or disclosure of customer data, disruptions in delivery, or other problems, the market for SaaS solutions as a whole, including our security solutions, could be negatively affected. You should consider our business and prospects in light of the risks and difficulties we encounter in this new and evolving market.

If we are unable to successfully enhance our existing products and services and introduce new products and services in response to rapid technological changes and market developments as well as evolving security threats, our competitive position and prospects will be harmed.

Our ability to increase revenue from existing customers and attract new customers will depend in significant part on our ability to anticipate and respond effectively to rapid technological changes and market developments as well as evolving security threats. The success of our Falcon platform depends on our ability to take such changes into account and invest effectively in our research and development organization to increase the reliability, availability and scalability of our existing solutions and introduce new solutions. If we fail to effectively anticipate, identify or respond to such changes in a timely manner, or at all, our business could be harmed. Even if we adequately fund our research and development efforts there is no guarantee that we will realize a return on such efforts.

Success in delivering enhancements and new solutions depends on several factors, including the timely completion, introduction and market acceptance of the enhancement or new solution, the risk that such enhancement or new solution may have quality or other defects or deficiencies, especially in the early stages of introduction, as well as our ability to seamlessly integrate all of our product and service offerings and develop adequate sales capabilities in new markets. For example, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) is a core component of our business and we are continuing to incorporate novel uses of AI, including generative AI, into our services. We may encounter new and difficult-to-anticipa

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Not applicable.

We have filed the exhibits listed on the accompanying Exhibit Index, which is incorporated herein by reference.

Index to Exhibits

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized on the day of November 28, 2023.