Payments software firm Coupa Software Inc. took a beating in extended trading today even though it delivered a strong third-quarter financial report.

The company reported a net loss of $91.2 million, though its earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation came to 31 cents per share. Revenue for the period grew by 40%, reaching $185.8 million.

Coupa also saw its subscription revenue grow by 40% year-over-year, to $164.7 million.

The results beat expectations. Wall Street had been looking for earnings of just 29 cents per share on revenue of $178.34 million.

Despite the strong performance, Coupa saw its stock fall more than 10% in after-hours trading.

Coupa Chairman and Chief Executive Rob Bernshteyn (pictued) nonetheless hailed the results, noting that the company delivered record revenue and profitability.

Coupa bills itself as a kind of savings-as-a-service provider, with the promise of helping companies spend less money over time on a range of enterprise services. To do this, it offers a suite of payment management tools that optimize their spending on procurement, invoicing, sourcing and business expenses.

Coupa’s software sits in the enterprise resource planning category. Some of its benefits include faster approvals routing, better invoice and purchase order matching, and centralized electronic payment routing to suppliers.

“As demonstrated by our third-quarter results, we are seeing strong adoption of the Coupa platform as our customers continue to prioritize Business Spend Management as a fundamental aspect of their go-forward strategy,” Bernshteyn said. “With the fourth quarter well under way, we continue to leverage our Value-as-a-Service approach to add strategic customers across many industries and of all sizes.”

Coupa reeled off a list of big companies that signed on as new customers in the quarter, including SoftBank Group Corp., EDEKA Handelsgesellschaft Nord GmbH, Capsida Biotherapeutics Inc. and Endeavor Group Ltd.

“Coupa delivered an excellent quarter despite Covid and a reduction in travel spend,” said Constellation Research Inc. analyst Ray Wang. “New startups such as TravelBank, TradeShift and TripActions are cutting into the travel side of spend management and more competitors are coming upmarket. Coupa has done a good job of beating SAP Ariba but investors are concerned about 2022 in general and taking profits year end. That’s why there is a drop in stock prices as year end profit taking is in vogue.”

Looking to the fourth quarter, Coupa offered a revenue forecast of $185 million to $186 million, which came in just ahead of Wall Street’s guidance of $184.23 million in sales.

Photo: SiliconANGLE