Braze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRZE) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Isabelle Winkles: Yes. So I mean, I’m going to come back to the point that I’ve made over the last couple of quarters that free cash flow is going to continue to be volatile quarter in and quarter out. So we advise folks still hit it on more of a four quarter trailing. I’ll reiterate the longer-term guide by the end of next year being both operating income positive by the fourth quarter of next year, in the quarter as well as free cash flow positive in that fourth quarter of next year. So look at that, look for that trajectory. I don’t think it’ll be linear. And so I would definitely expect some ebbs and flows there, which is part of the reason why we don’t provide specific guidance on that metric.

Derrick Wood: Got it. Well done. Thank you.

Operator: Next question is from Brent Bracelin with Piper Sandler.

Brent Bracelin: Good Afternoon. I wanted to go back to kind of the macro-demand environment. Totally understand the environment is still challenging. Sales cycles remain challenging. But you did flag retail and media entertainment as one area of strength you saw in the quarter, I was hoping you could double click into the drivers of that improvement. Is there something specific to those verticals that’s resonating around first party data, is it omnichannel? Just walk us through maybe a challenge macro in those environments, but Braze’s ability to do a bit better. Thanks.

Bill Magnuson: Yes. I think it’s both of those things. I think also Braze has shown tremendous ability over the years to get great reference and landmark accounts in categories and be able to leverage the increased — know-how that we have around the business, and those customer examples to be able to continue to expand within those categories. We’ve also with — retail and e-com in particular, we’ve also done a lot on the product side in order to do things like improve our Shopify integration and continue to build out e-com specific features. You saw the product catalog launch launched last year. We continue to enhance the capabilities of the product catalog over time and we’re really excited about the future of that entire kind of data storage sitting along — the capabilities of having that data storage sitting right alongside Canvas.

And so I think that you’ll continue to see over time Braze from a vertical perspective that, in any given year. we’ve seen our ability to build on prior momentum within different categories. There’s other places where we spread our bets out and make sure that we’re always cracking into new categories for the future, so that we can continue to have robust diversified growth even as things like the macro or other sorts of competition effects might hit a particular vertical or another. We’ve always been very diversified. And I think it’s given a good durability and predictability to our results. And we’re continuing to see that as well. However, or not however, I would say, and from a first-party data perspective, I think that we’re seeing some really exciting investment and continued momentum in terms of how brands are thinking about first-party data.

So most of the conversation about first-party data in the world recently has been largely, I would say, defensive or like focused on avoidance of loss, which is that, everyone is kind of talking about needing to invest in first-party data as their third-party datasets either become invalid, incomplete, illegal to use, et cetera, and they are frantically trying to build up our first-party data sets, so they can keep running the same performance marketing strategies as before. The next stage of that which is the stage that most Braze customers are at, is really realizing that first-party data has a job to do in describing your first-party relationships and understanding them. And once you can describe and understand them, when you pair that with customer engagement, you can then take action on them.

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