Business automation software firm UiPath Inc. saw its stock rise in extended trading today after posting fiscal first-quarter earnings results and guidance for the next period that came in above expectations.

The company reported a net loss for the quarter of $122.6 million, with earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation coming to three cents per share. UiPath also reported revenue of $245.1 million, up by a healthy 32% from the same period one year ago.

The results were better than expected, with Wall Street analysts modeling a wider loss of 5 cents per share on lower sales of $226 million. UiPath’s stock rose more than 8% on the report, having lost just over 1% of its value earlier in the regular trading session.

UiPath co-founder and co-Chief Executive Daniel Dines (pictured) said the company exceeded its guidance across all possible metrics, noting that it posted a 50% jump in annual recurring revenue from a year ago, to $977 million.

Dismissing fears that UiPath might struggle amid the economic uncertainty that has affected so many tech firms this year, Chief Financial Officer Ashim Gupta insisted that its financial model and strong balance sheet “position us well” in the current macroeconomic environment. “The automation market is large and growing and we continue to take market share given the measurable return on investment we create for our customers and the breadth and depth of our automation platform,” he added.

UiPath is a leader in the robotic process automation market. It sells an RPA platform that helps companies to reduce costs and operational errors by automating repetitive work. It relies on artificial intelligence models that learn how employees perform common tasks in business applications. Then, it creates software robots that can replicate those workflows, thereby reducing the need to perform many of those tasks manually.

UiPath’s platform continues to be in big demand, as shown by its rapidly growing ARR, an important metric that shows how much revenue the company expects to repeat, meaning it serves as a measure of progress and also as a prediction of future growth.

During the quarter, UiPath announced a big change to its management structure when it appointed tech industry veteran Robert Enslin, former president of Google Cloud, as its new co-CEO to work alongside Dines. At the time, Dines said Enslin would be focused on helping the company to grow and scale, allowing him to focus more on its culture, vision and product innovation.

“We are at the scale right now where we have to prepare this company to grow consistently and officially into the next stage,” Dines told analysts on a conference call today. “This is why we brought Rob [in], to help us execute really well on this stage. At this point we are looking to be more customer-centric, scale our enterprise teams… to be capable and more consistent across regions.

Another sign of UiPath’s growth was visible in its net new ARR of $51.8 million added during the quarter. UiPath also reported a dollar-based net retention rate of 138%. The NRR metric shows fluctuation within a company’s existing revenue base, describing changes to recurring revenue over time according to upgrades, downgrades and churn. A score over 100 shows the company is squeezing more revenue from its existing customer base.

UiPath did report a higher NRR of 145% during the previous quarter. “Our dollar-based net retention rate of 138% for the quarter reflects the write-down of Russia ARR,” Gupta said on a call with analysts. “Net of the Russia impact, dollar-based net retention rate was 139%.”

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller said UiPath enjoyed a good quarter with strong demand for its offerings and that it’s on track to deliver $1 billion in revenue for the first time. “UiPath is well-positioned with an enterprise veteran co-CEO in Rob Enslin and a very strong automation cloud offering,” he said.

Mueller was also encouraged by UiPath’s efforts to stop the losses and get closer to being profitable. He said the company did well to reduce its cost base by almost 60% year-over-year, though he did worry that the reduction in research and development costs was bigger than in other areas, something that could impact innovation in future.

“R&D is a possible concern, but for now the product portfolio looks strong,” Mueller added. “The key development to watch over the next two quarters is how UiPath will achieve its full-year goal of getting into the black, with the third quarter likely being critical.”

Looking to the current quarter ending in August, UiPath offered a revenue forecast of between $229 million and $231 million, above Wall Street’s forecast of $227.1 million. For the full year, UiPath is expecting revenue of $1.09 billion, versus the consensus estimate of $1.07 billion.

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