Big data company Alteryx Inc. is flying high today after posting strong second-quarter results and offering a forecast for the next quarter and full year that came in ahead of expectations.

The company reported a loss before certain costs such as stock compensation of 46 cents per share on revenue of $180.6 million, up 50% from the same period last year. Wall Street had been looking for a wider loss of 60 cents per share on lower sales of just $161 million.

Alteryx’s net loss widened to $106.8 million in the quarter, from $43.4 million in the same period one year earlier. Following the report, Alteryx’s stock jumped more than 12% in extended trading, adding to a gain of just over 4% during the regular session.

Alteryx Chief Executive Mark Anderson (pictured) also praised the company’s “outstanding” annual recurring revenue growth. It ended the quarter with $726.8 million in ARR, up 33% year-over-year. “We are seeing business leaders increasingly prioritize democratization of data as part of their digital transformation journeys,” Anderson said. “Alteryx is uniquely positioned to enable businesses to automate workflows, upskill workforces and embrace advanced data analytics.”

Alteryx sells extract, transform and load, or ETL, tools, which are used by companies to prepare data for analysis. The company’s Alteryx Analytics Cloud platform provides baked-in connectivity to business intelligence tools such as Experian and Tableau, and features capabilities around data cleansing, data mining and geospatial analytics.

The company’s offering has apparently found a receptive audience. Alteryx said it ended the quarter with 8,296 paying customers, up 12% from a year earlier. What’s more, Alteryx is squeezing more money from that customer base, with its dollar-based net expansion rate rising to 120% at the end of the quarter. The net expansion rate is a metric that’s used to measure growth in annual contract value.

Looking to the third quarter, Alteryx offered an optimistic forecast that stands in contrast to the cautionary guidance of most other technology firms these days. The company said it sees third-quarter revenue of between $191 million and $194 million. That would represent revenue growth of between 55% and 57%, and is well ahead of Wall Street’s forecast of $173.6 million in sales.

Alteryx also adjusted its fiscal 2023 guidance, saying it now sees sales of $770 million to $780 million for the full year, up from an earlier range of $750 to $760 million. Wall Street had forecast full-year revenue of just $734 million.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said Alteryx is proving to be a rare exception in a tech industry that is slowing down across the board, with stellar revenue growth of more than 50%.

“However the growth came at a cost, with Alteryx’s losses growing just as fast as its revenue,” Mueller added. “On the other hand, the company forecasts that it will be able to reduce its losses substantially in the third quarter. That will not straighten out its losses for the full year, but it shows investors that the company can eventually get its costs under control with Mark Anderson’s leadership.”

Photo: Alteryx