Cloud database company Couchbase Inc. delivered another solid earnings and revenue beat today, and its guidance was better than expected too, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy investors as its stock stayed flat in extended trading.

The company reported a loss before certain costs such as stock compensation of eight cents per share, coming in ahead of Wall Street’s forecast of an 18-cent-per-share loss. In terms of sales, it generated $45.8 million, up 19% from a year earlier and above the consensus estimate of $43 million.

However, the increased revenue came at a cost and so the company was unable to make much of a dent in its bottom line. It reported a net loss of $16.2 million for the third quarter, down only slightly from the $16.7 million loss it posted in the same period one year earlier.

That may explain why Couchbase’s results failed to cheer up investors. Earlier, during the regular trading session, its stock fell by 2%, and barely moved after the results came in.

Couchbase Chair, President and Chief Executive Matt Cain (pictured) seemed happy enough, though, pointing out that the company’s top line and profitability outcomes exceeded its own guidance range. “I’m pleased with the team’s excellent operational performance, which is contributing to our increasing momentum,” he insisted.

The company is the developer of the well-known Couchbase NoSQL database service, which is widely used by enterprises to power more complex business applications. The company’s flagship product these days is the cloud-hosted Capella database, though it also offers an on-premises version.

Unlike traditional databases such as Oracle Database, Couchbase Capella has the ability to process both structured and unstructured data at the same time. It’s a unique capability that makes the database a better alternative for certain kinds of apps that can benefit from both kinds of data. In addition, Couchbase Capella can act as a data cache, so customers essentially get three systems for the price of one.

That may explain why Couchbase’s adoption continues to grow. One sign of this comes from its annual recurring revenue, which rose to $188.7 million at the end of the quarter, up 24% from a year ago. The company also reported remaining performance obligations, which represents the total value of contracted products or services that are yet to be delivered, of $164.4 million, up 3% from a year earlier.

On the product side, Couchbase’s biggest highlight during the quarter was the launch of a new Capella columnar service on the Amazon Web Services cloud, enabling customers to harness real-time analytics for adaptive applications. Using the new service, customers can access a new columnar store and data integration via the Capella database-as-a-service offering, meaning they can perform real-time data analysis on the same platform as their operational workloads.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said Couchbase had a good quarter with its revenue growth up close to 20%. “New services such as the columnar service on AWS will help it to grow further,” the analyst said. “However, investors will have noticed that Couchbase’s cost base also increased, as it’s treading flat year-over-year in terms of profitability. Matt Cain and team will need to find more growth, and so long as they do it well, investors will likely honor it.”

Analyst Doug Henschen, also of Constellation Research, said that although Couchbase is still unprofitable, its performance contrasts well with that of its biggest rival, MongoDB, which went public in 2017 but is still reporting losses. “Couchbase is in good company in fueling growth in its early history and is hitting decent numbers despite economic headwinds,” he added.

The company is confident that it will continue to do so, offering a fourth-quarter revenue outlook of $46.2 million to $46.8 million, with the midpoint of that range coming in just ahead of Wall Street’s call for $46.3 million in sales. For the full fiscal year, Couchbase sees revenue of between $176.2 million and $176.8 million, ahead of the Street’s call for $173.5 million.

Photo: Couchbase