UPDATED 18:47 EDT / AUGUST 08 2017

BIG DATA

Talend CEO on IPO anniversary: ‘I’m happy with our progress’

Mike Tuchen called from Vail, Colorado, where he’s attending the Pacific Crest Global Technology Leadership Forum. The chief executive of Talend Inc. estimates that it’s his sixth investment conference this year, but that’s not unusual for the head of a company that has been publicly held almost exactly one year.

“In the first year you spend a lot of time with investors to help them understand the story and the management team,” Tuchen said. “You reiterate the story over and over again. Now that we’ve been public for a year I’ll start dialing it back. I’m happy with our progress.”

July 29 marked the first anniversary of Talend’s initial public offering, and by all accounts it has been a pretty good year for the data integration company. Last week it announced 41 percent revenue growth for the most recent quarter as it slightly raised revenue target for the year. Its stock is trading 50 percent above the close on its first day of trading and is up nearly 70 percent this year. Seven of the eight analysts monitored by Tipranks Ltd. rate the stock a “buy.”

Tuchen said Talend has come through a period of consolidation in the data integration market and he contended it’s emerging as one of the winners. “We believe we’re going to be the next-generation market leader,” he said. Business from large enterprises grew 56 percent year-over-year in the most recent quarter and Talend’s net revenue retention rate – an indication of growth among existing accounts – has topped 120 percent for the past 12 quarters.

Because it’s cheaper and easier to sell incremental business to existing customers than to recruit new ones, that spells lower sales costs. “Half our growth is coming from our installed base,” Tuchen said. “Not only does that improve our leverage, but it speaks to the predictability of the business.”

Cash, not flash

No one ever accuses Talend of being a flashy company, but indications are that its strategy of growing steadily and staying within its means is winning favor among investors and customers, particularly as the stocks of high-profile tech firms such as Snap Inc. and Twitter Inc. twist in the wind. “Investors really don’t like surprises,” Tuchen said.

Having wrapped up a year of convincing those investors that its market and its position are secure, Tuchen said conversations are now turning to growth and market share. Big data projects are moving strongly into the cloud, he said, a fact that drove Talend to broadly increase support for public cloud vendors in its most recent release. The impending General Data Protection Regulation in Europe is also providing a tailwind. “Companies will need stricter governance than they had in the past, and that means data quality and master data management,” he said.

One thing talent didn’t do during its first post-IPO year is buy anybody, but that’s likely to change. In keeping with the company’s conservative style, acquisitions won’t be done to grow the top line. “We’re not interested in buying revenue or an installed base or a brand,” Tuchen said. “We look at acquiring strong technologies and strong teams. The track record of success for those tuck-ins has been much better.”

In the second half of this year, look for the company to become more focused on its cloud business and to grow its international presence. Although Talend has grown its workforce by 30 percent over the past year, it has no intention to slow hiring. In fact, finding quality people is actually getting easier, Tuchen said. “A lot of our competitors are struggling and they see friends at Talend doing well. It’s actually a really good time to hire,” he said.

Image: Talend on Facebook

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU