Pivotal Software Inc. is going out on a high note.

In what may be its last earnings report as a public company, the maker of the Cloud Foundry cloud development platform reported a narrower quarterly loss on 17% revenue growth driven by a 38% rise in subscription revenue.

Pivotal agreed to be acquired by sibling VMware Inc. last month in a $2.7 billion deal that capped a string of recent acquisitions by VMware as it seeks to expand beyond virtualization into the fast-growing market for software containers and cloud-native applications. Both companies are controlled by Dell Technologies Inc.

“Pivotal, along with Heptio, Bitnami and other pieces of the VMware portfolio make up the new cloud-native unit inside of VMware, which has the charter of keeping the company known for its dominance in hypervisors relevant in the multicloud world,” said Stu Miniman, senior analyst at Wikibon, SiliconANGLE’s sister research company.

Because of the pending sale, Pivotal didn’t hold the customary conference call to discuss performance or update financial forecasts. The company issued a brief statement by Chief Executive Rob Mee (pictured), who attributed revenue growth to “customer expansions and new customer wins.”

Total revenue for the quarter was $193 million, well above the company’s earlier forecast of between $185 million and $189 million and analyst estimates of $186.5 million. Subscription revenues of $135 million comprised 70% of total revenues, up from 59% in the same quarter a year earlier. Growth in subscription revenues slowed slightly from previous quarters.

Pivotal’s quarterly net loss narrowed to $28.1 million from $35.6 million a year ago. Adjusted net earnings per share were at break-even, better than analyst estimates of a loss of 3 to 4 cents per share.

Despite the strong results, Pivotal’s stock moved little in after-hours trading because investors have already built the acquisition price into the company’s value.

Judging a business like Pivotal’s on a quarterly basis is misleading, given the nature of the company’s business, Miniman said. “Pivotal’s strength has been in helping large companies along the journey of digital transformation,” he said. “These deals involves large revenue and long sales cycles.”

As part of VMware, those details will no longer be subject to public scrutiny.

Photo: Pivotal Software