MongoDB, Inc. (MDB) FY 2022 MD&A

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included in Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, of this Form 10-K. All information presented herein is based on our fiscal calendar. Unless otherwise stated, references to particular years, quarters, months or periods refer to our fiscal years ended January 31 and the associated quarters, months and periods of those fiscal years.

Overview

MongoDB is the leading modern, general purpose database platform. Our robust platform enables developers to build and modernize applications rapidly and cost-effectively across a broad range of use cases. Organizations can deploy our platform at scale in the cloud, on-premise, or in a hybrid environment. Through our unique document-based architecture, we are able to address the needs of organizations for performance, scalability, flexibility and reliability while maintaining the strengths of legacy databases. Software applications continue to redefine how organizations across industries engage with their customers, operate their businesses and compete with each other. A database is at the heart of every software application. As a result, selecting a database is a highly strategic decision that directly affects developer productivity, application performance and organizational competitiveness. Our platform addresses the performance, scalability, flexibility and reliability demands of modern applications, while maintaining the strengths of legacy databases. Our business model combines the developer mindshare and adoption benefits of open source with the economic benefits of a proprietary software subscription business model.

We generate revenue primarily from sales of subscriptions, which accounted for 96%, 96% and 95% of our total revenue for the years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

MongoDB Atlas is our hosted multi-cloud database-as-a-service (“DBaaS”) offering that includes comprehensive infrastructure and management, which we run and manage in the cloud. During the year ended January 31, 2022, MongoDB Atlas revenue represented 56% of our total revenue, as compared to 46% in the prior year, reflecting the continued growth of MongoDB Atlas since its introduction in June 2016. We have experienced strong growth in self-serve customers of MongoDB Atlas. These customers are charged monthly in arrears based on their usage. In addition, we have also seen growth in MongoDB Atlas customers sold by our sales force. These customers typically sign annual contracts and pay in advance or are invoiced monthly in arrears based on usage.

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced is our proprietary commercial database server offering for enterprise customers that can run in the cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid environment. MongoDB Enterprise Advanced revenue represented 35%, 44% and 50% of our subscription revenue for the years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We sell subscriptions directly through our field and inside sales teams, as well as indirectly through channel partners. The majority of our subscription contracts are one year in duration and are invoiced upfront. When we enter into multi-year subscriptions, we typically invoice the customer on an annual basis.

Many of our enterprise customers initially get to know our software by using Community Server, which is our free-to-download version of our database that includes the core functionality developers need to get started with MongoDB without all the features of our commercial platform. Our platform has been downloaded from our website more than 240 million times since February 2009 and over 85 million times in the last 12 months alone. We also offer a free tier of MongoDB Atlas, which provides access to our hosted database solution with limited processing power and storage, as well as certain operational limitations. As a result, with the availability of both Community Server and MongoDB Atlas free tier offerings, our direct sales prospects are often familiar with our platform and may have already built applications using our technology. A core component of our growth strategy for MongoDB Atlas and MongoDB Enterprise Advanced is to convert developers and their organizations who are already using Community Server or the free tier of MongoDB Atlas to become customers of our commercial products and enjoy the benefits of either a self-managed or hosted offering.

We also generate revenue from services, which consist primarily of fees associated with consulting and training services. Revenue from services accounted for 4%, 4% and 5% of our total revenue for the years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We expect to continue to invest in our services organization as we believe it plays an important role in accelerating our customers’ realization of the benefits of our platform, which helps drive customer retention and expansion.

We believe the market for our offerings is large and growing. We have experienced rapid growth and have made substantial investments in developing our platform and expanding our sales and marketing footprint. We intend to continue to

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invest heavily to grow our business to take advantage of our market opportunity rather than optimizing for profitability or cash flow in the near term.

Impact of the Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has continued to impact the United States and the world. The full extent of the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on our future operational and financial performance will depend on certain developments, including the duration and spread of the outbreak and the impact of new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19; the public health measures taken by authorities and other entities to contain and treat COVID-19; the actions taken to effect a widespread, global roll-out of the available vaccines and the efficacy and durability of such vaccines; and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy and on our current and prospective customers, employees, vendors and other parties with whom we do business, all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted.

In 2020, we adopted several measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including temporarily requiring employees to work remotely, suspending non-essential travel by our employees, and replacing in-person marketing events (including our annual developer conference) with virtual events. During 2021, we began to re-open our offices in the United States and certain other locations globally for employees to voluntarily return, subject to certain restrictions and government regulations, and we have taken recommended measures to protect the health and safety of employees who return to the office, including occupancy limitations, masking requirements and other safety measures. We have informed our employees that they may continue to elect to work remotely until conditions improve, even if their office reopens. While certain travel bans and other restrictions that were implemented at the beginning of the pandemic were relaxed earlier in the year, due to the identification of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, among other developments, some of these restrictions were re-imposed, and new restrictions may be implemented. Business travel on a voluntary basis resumed during 2021 and we started to hold some in-person marketing events. Although our travel costs for the year ended January 31, 2022, were below pre-pandemic levels, we expect travel behavior to return to pre-pandemic levels. We are actively monitoring the situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we may adjust our policies as may be required or recommended by federal, foreign, state or local authorities.

We will continue to evaluate the nature and extent of the impact of COVID-19 on our business. For further discussion of the potential impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on our business, operating results, and financial condition, see the section titled “Risk Factors” included in Part I, Item 1A of this Form 10-K. Other factors affecting our performance are discussed below, although we caution you that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may also further impact these factors.

Factors Affecting Our Performance

Extending Product Leadership and Maintaining Developer Mindshare

We are committed to delivering market-leading products to continue to build and maintain credibility with the global software developer community. We believe we must maintain our product leadership position and the strength of our brand to drive further revenue growth. For example, during 2020, we released MongoDB 4.4, which included significant updates to the query language to enhance analytics capabilities and to provide increased flexibility of data distribution in order to further improve resiliency and performance. In addition, we introduced a number of additional features and products within MongoDB Atlas including the general availability of MongoDB Atlas Search, which integrates full-text search capabilities with our operational database, reducing implementation complexity for developers and eliminating the need to maintain multiple technologies. We also announced the general availability of MongoDB Atlas Data Lake and MongoDB Atlas Online Archive, which allow customers to store data more cost effectively on our platform and make that data readily available to their applications running on MongoDB Atlas. Finally, we fully integrated Tightdb, Inc. (“Realm”), the leading mobile application database we acquired in 2019, with MongoDB Atlas allowing developers to build highly performant mobile applications with seamless data synchronization. During 2021, with the release of MongoDB 5.0, we improved the ease of use of our platform, by introducing innovation that facilitates data partitioning as well as simplifying the process of upgrading to the latest version of our software. We also expanded the breadth of functionality of our platform by introducing native time series support across our platform. Finally, we announced a series of improvements to our newer products, including adding critical e-commerce capabilities to Atlas Search. In 2021, we also moved to a quarterly product release schedule, starting with MongoDB 5.1, to bring new features and capabilities more quickly to our customers. Our latest releases included enhancements to time series collections, richer and more flexible analytics, improvements to query functionality, new capabilities that allow teams to execute more sophisticated analytic queries directly against their live operational and

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transactional data, and enhancements to our security features. We also made it possible for developers to easily access their MongoDB Atlas through a standard interface.

We intend to continue to invest in our engineering capabilities and marketing activities to maintain our strong position in the developer community. We have spent $983.0 million on research and development since our inception. Our results of operations may fluctuate as we make these investments to drive increased customer adoption and usage.

Growing Our Customer Base and Expanding Our Global Reach

We are intensely focused on continuing to grow our customer base. We have invested, and expect to continue to invest, heavily in our sales and marketing efforts and developer community outreach, which are critical to driving customer acquisition. As of January 31, 2022, we had over 33,000 customers across a wide range of industries and in over 100 countries, compared to over 24,800 customers and over 17,000 customers as of January 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. All affiliated entities are counted as a single customer.

Our customer count as of January 31, 2022 includes customers acquired from ObjectLabs Corporation (“mLab”) and Realm. Our definition of “customer” excludes (1) users of our free offerings, (2) mLab users who spend $20 or less per month with us and (3) self-serve users acquired from Realm. The excluded mLab and Realm users collectively represent an immaterial portion of the revenue associated with users acquired from those acquisitions.

As of January 31, 2022, we had over 4,400 customers that were sold through our direct sales force and channel partners, as compared to over 3,000 and over 2,000 such customers as of January 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. These customers, which we refer to as our Direct Sales Customers, accounted for 85%, 82% and 78% of our subscription revenue for the years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. The percentage of our subscription revenue from Direct Sales Customers increased, in part, due to existing self-serve customers of MongoDB Atlas becoming Direct Sales Customers. We are also focused on increasing the number of overall MongoDB Atlas customers as we emphasize the on-demand scalability of MongoDB Atlas by allowing our customers to consume the product with minimal commitment. After launching in June 2016, we had over 31,500 MongoDB Atlas customers as of January 31, 2022. The growth in MongoDB Atlas customers included customers from mLab and Realm, as described above, as well as new customers to MongoDB and existing MongoDB Enterprise Advanced customers adding incremental MongoDB Atlas workloads.

In an effort to expand our global reach, in October 2019, we announced a partnership with Alibaba Cloud to offer an authorized MongoDB-as-a-service solution allowing customers of Alibaba Cloud to use this managed offering from their data centers globally. We expanded our reach in China in February 2021 when we announced the launch of a global partnership with Tencent Cloud that allows customers to easily adopt and use MongoDB-as-a-Service across Tencent’s global cloud infrastructure.

Increasing Adoption of MongoDB Atlas

MongoDB Atlas, our hosted multi-cloud offering, is an important part of our run-anywhere strategy. To accelerate adoption of this DBaaS offering, in 2017, we introduced tools to easily migrate existing users of our Community Server offering to MongoDB Atlas. We have also expanded our introductory offerings for MongoDB Atlas, including a free tier, which provides limited processing power and storage in order to drive usage and adoption of MongoDB Atlas among developers. Our MongoDB Atlas free tier offering is now available on all three major cloud providers (Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), Google Cloud Platform (“GCP”) and Microsoft Azure) in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. In addition, MongoDB Atlas is available on AWS Marketplace, making it easier for AWS customers to buy and consume MongoDB Atlas. Our business partnership with GCP provides deeper product integration and unified billing for GCP customers who are also MongoDB Atlas customers and offers GCP customers a seamless integration between MongoDB Atlas and GCP. The availability of MongoDB Atlas on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace offers unified billing for joint customers of MongoDB Atlas and Microsoft and makes it easier for established Azure customers to purchase and use MongoDB Atlas.

We have also expanded the functionality available in MongoDB Atlas beyond that of our Community Server offering. We expect this will drive further adoption of MongoDB Atlas as companies migrate mission-critical applications to the public cloud. The enterprise capabilities that we have introduced to MongoDB Atlas include advanced security features, enterprise-standard authentication and database auditing. We have invested significantly in MongoDB Atlas and our ability to drive adoption of MongoDB Atlas is a key component of our growth strategy.

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Retaining and Expanding Revenue from Existing Customers

The economic attractiveness of our subscription-based model is driven by customer renewals and increasing existing customer subscriptions over time, referred to as land-and-expand. We believe that there is a significant opportunity to drive additional sales to existing customers and expect to invest in sales and marketing and customer success personnel and activities to achieve additional revenue growth from existing customers. If an application grows and requires additional capacity, our customers increase their subscriptions to our platform. In addition, our customers expand their subscriptions to our platform as they migrate additional existing applications or build new applications, either within the same department or in other lines of business or geographies. Also, as customers modernize their information technology infrastructure and move to the cloud, they may migrate applications from legacy databases. Our goal is to increase the number of customers that standardize on our database within their organization. Over time, the subscription amount for our typical Direct Sales Customer has increased.

We calculate annualized recurring revenue (“ARR”) and annualized monthly recurring revenue (“MRR”) to help us measure our subscription revenue performance. ARR includes the revenue we expect to receive from our customers over the following 12 months based on contractual commitments and, in the case of Direct Sales Customers of MongoDB Atlas, by annualizing the prior 90 days of their actual consumption of MongoDB Atlas, assuming no increases or reductions in their subscriptions or usage. For all other customers of our self-serve products, we calculate annualized MRR by annualizing the prior 30 days of their actual consumption of such products, assuming no increases or reductions in usage. ARR and annualized MRR exclude professional services. The number of customers with $100,000 or greater in ARR and annualized MRR was 1,307, 975 and 751 as of January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. Our ability to increase sales to existing customers will depend on a number of factors, including customers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our products and services, competition, pricing, economic conditions or overall changes in our customers’ spending levels.

We also examine the rate at which our customers increase their spend with us, which we call net ARR expansion rate. We calculate net ARR expansion rate by dividing the ARR at the close of a given period (the “measurement period”), from customers who were also customers at the close of the same period in the prior year (the “base period”), by the ARR from all customers at the close of the base period, including those who churned or reduced their subscriptions. For Direct Sales Customers included in the base period, measurement period or both such periods that were self-serve customers in any such period, we also include annualized MRR from those customers in the calculation of the net ARR expansion rate. Our net ARR expansion rate has consistently been over 120%, demonstrating our ability to expand within existing customers.

Our ability to increase sales to existing customers will depend on a number of factors, including customers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our products and services, competition, pricing, economic conditions or overall changes in our customers’ spending levels.

Investing in Growth and Scaling Our Business

We are focused on our long-term revenue potential. We believe that our market opportunity is large and we will continue to invest significantly in scaling across all organizational functions in order to grow our operations both domestically and internationally. Any investments we make in our sales and marketing organization will occur in advance of experiencing the benefits from such investments, so it may be difficult for us to determine if we are efficiently allocating resources in those areas. We have increased our sales and marketing headcount to 1,713 employees as of January 31, 2022 from 1,171 employees and 789 employees as of January 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

Subscription Revenue. Our subscription revenue is comprised of term licenses and hosted as-a-service solutions. Subscriptions to term licenses include technical support and access to new software versions on a when-and-if available basis. Revenue from our term licenses is recognized upfront for the license component and ratably for the technical support and when-and-if available update components. Associated contracts are typically billed annually in advance. Revenue from our hosted as-a-service solutions is primarily generated on a usage basis and is billed either in arrears or paid up front. The majority of our subscription contracts are one year in duration. When we enter into multi-year subscriptions, we typically invoice the customer on an annual basis. Our subscription contracts are generally non-cancelable and non-refundable.

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Services Revenue. Services revenue is comprised of consulting and training services and is recognized over the period of delivery of the applicable services. We recognize revenue from services agreements as services are delivered.

We expect our revenue may vary from period to period based on, among other things, the timing and size of new subscriptions, the proportion of term license contracts that commence within the period, the rate of customer renewals and expansions, delivery of professional services, the impact of significant transactions and seasonality of or fluctuations in usage for our consumption-based customers.

Cost of Revenue

Cost of Subscription Revenue. Cost of subscription revenue primarily includes third-party cloud infrastructure expenses for our hosted as-a-service solutions. We expect our cost of subscription revenue to increase in absolute dollars as our subscription revenue increases and, depending on the results of MongoDB Atlas, our cost of subscription revenue may increase as a percentage of subscription revenue as well. Cost of subscription revenue also includes personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses and benefits and stock-based compensation, for employees associated with our subscription arrangements principally related to technical support and allocated shared costs, as well as depreciation and amortization.

Cost of Services Revenue. Cost of services revenue primarily includes personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses and benefits, and stock-based compensation, for employees associated with our professional service contracts, as well as, travel costs, allocated shared costs and depreciation and amortization. We expect our cost of services revenue to increase in absolute dollars as our services revenue increases.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross Profit. Gross profit represents revenue less cost of revenue.

Gross Margin. Gross margin, or gross profit as a percentage of revenue, has been and will continue to be affected by a variety of factors, including the average sales price of our products and services, the mix of products sold, transaction volume growth and the mix of revenue between subscriptions and services. We expect our gross margin to fluctuate over time depending on the factors described above and, to the extent MongoDB Atlas revenue increases as a percentage of total revenue, our gross margin may decline as a result of the associated hosting costs of MongoDB Atlas.

Operating Expenses

Our operating expenses consist of sales and marketing, research and development and general and administrative expenses. Personnel costs are the most significant component of each category of operating expenses. Operating expenses also include travel and related costs and allocated overhead costs for facilities, information technology and employee benefit costs.

Sales and Marketing. Sales and marketing expense consists primarily of personnel costs, including salaries, sales commission and benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation. These expenses also include costs related to marketing programs, travel-related expenses and allocated overhead. Marketing programs consist of advertising, events, corporate communications, and brand-building and developer-community activities. We expect our sales and marketing expense to increase in absolute dollars over time as we expand our sales force and increase our marketing resources, expand into new markets and further develop our self-serve and partner channels.

Research and Development. Research and development expense consists primarily of personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses and benefits, and stock-based compensation. It also includes amortization associated with intangible acquired assets and allocated overhead. We expect our research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars, as we continue to invest in our platform and develop new products.

General and Administrative. General and administrative expense consists primarily of personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses and benefits, and stock-based compensation for administrative functions including finance, legal, human resources and external legal and accounting fees, as well as allocated overhead. We expect general and administrative expense to increase in absolute dollars over time as we continue to invest in the growth of our business, as well as incur the ongoing costs of compliance associated with being a publicly traded company.

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Other Income (Expense), Net

Other income (expense), net consists primarily of interest income, interest expense and gains and losses from foreign currency transactions.

Provision for (Benefit from) Income Taxes

Provision for income taxes consists primarily of state income taxes in the United States and income taxes in certain foreign jurisdictions in which we conduct business. As of January 31, 2022, we had net operating loss (“NOL”) carryforwards for U.S. federal and state, Irish and U.K. income tax purposes of approximately $1.9 billion, $1.7 billion, $558.4 million and $44.1 million, respectively, which begin to expire in the year ending January 31, 2028 for U.S. federal purposes and January 31, 2023 for state purposes. Operating losses in the United States, for years after January 31, 2018, in Ireland and the U.K. may be carried forward indefinitely. The deferred tax assets associated with the NOL carryforwards in each of these jurisdictions are subject to a full valuation allowance. Under Section 382 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”), a corporation that experiences an “ownership change” is subject to a limitation on its ability to utilize its pre-change NOLs to offset future taxable income. We also have U.S. federal and state research credit carryforwards of $70.6 million and $6.6 million, respectively, which begin to expire in the year ending January 31, 2029 for federal purposes and January 31, 2025 for state purposes. Utilization of the federal NOL carryforwards and credits may be subject to a substantial annual limitation due to the ownership change limitations provided by the Code, as amended and similar state provisions. The annual limitation, should we undergo an ownership change, may result in the expiration of U.S. federal or state net operating losses and credits before utilization; however we do not expect any such limitation to be material.

Highlights for the Years Ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020

For the years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, our total revenue was $873.8 million, $590.4 million and $421.7 million, respectively. The increase in total revenue was primarily driven by an increase in subscription revenue from our Direct Sales Customers. Our net loss was $306.9 million, $266.9 million and $175.5 million for the years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively, driven primarily by higher sales and marketing spend and research and development costs. Our operating cash flow was $7.0 million, $(42.7) million and $(29.5) million for the years ended January 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

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Results of Operations

The following tables set forth our results of operations for the periods presented in U.S. dollars (in thousands) and as a percentage of our total revenue. Percentage of revenue figures are rounded and therefore may not subtotal exactly.

(1)    Includes stock-based compensation expense as follows (in thousands):

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Comparison of the Years Ended January 31, 2022 and 2021

Revenue

Total revenue growth reflects increased demand for our platform and related services. Subscription revenue increased by $276.7 million primarily due to an increase of $253.6 million from our Direct Sales Customers, inclusive of the impact from Direct Sales Customers who were self-serve customers of MongoDB Atlas in the prior-year period. The growth in services revenue was driven primarily by the increased delivery of consulting services.

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Cost of Revenue, Gross Profit and Gross Margin Percentage

The increase in subscription cost of revenue was primarily due to a $58.3 million increase in third‑party cloud infrastructure costs, including costs associated with the growth of MongoDB Atlas. The increase in third-party infrastructure costs was partly offset by continued cost efficiencies realized as we scale MongoDB Atlas. In addition, subscription cost of revenue was higher due to a $10.9 million increase in personnel costs and stock-based compensation associated with increased headcount in our support organization. The increase in services cost of revenue was primarily due to a $5.7 million increase in personnel costs and stock-based compensation associated with increased headcount in our services organization. Total headcount in our support and services organizations increased 33% from January 31, 2021 to January 31, 2022.

Our overall gross margin, as well as our subscription gross margin, remained flat. Our subscription gross margin is negatively impacted by the increasing percentage of revenue from MongoDB Atlas, offset by efficiencies realized in managing our third-party cloud infrastructure costs. The impact of higher services personnel costs and stock-based compensation resulted in negative services gross margin.

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing

The increase in sales and marketing expense included $100.7 million from higher personnel costs and stock-based compensation, driven by an increase in our sales and marketing headcount to 1,713 as of January 31, 2022 from 1,171 as of January 31, 2021, which includes non-quota-carrying hires in sales operations, customer success and marketing. A portion of the increased personnel costs was due to higher payroll taxes related to the vesting of restricted stock units and stock option exercises, which was impacted by our higher average stock price as compared to the prior year. Sales and marketing expense also increased $30.0 million from costs associated with our higher headcount, including higher commissions expense and higher travel costs related to in-person events. In addition, sales and marketing expenses increased by $4.8 million due to increased spending on marketing programs.

Research and Development

The increase in research and development expense was primarily driven by a $92.0 million increase in personnel costs and stock-based compensation as we increased our research and development headcount by 35% to 863 as of January 31, 2022 from 638 as of January 31, 2021. A portion of the increased personnel costs was due to higher payroll taxes related to the vesting of restricted stock units and stock option exercises, which was impacted by our higher average stock price as compared to the prior year.

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General and Administrative

The increase in general and administrative expense was due to higher costs to support the growth of our business and to maintain compliance as a public company. In particular, these higher costs were driven by an increase in general and administrative personnel headcount resulting in $28.8 million higher personnel costs and stock-based compensation. A portion of the increased personnel costs was due to higher payroll taxes related to the vesting of restricted stock units and stock option exercises, which was impacted by our higher average stock price as compared to the prior year.

Other Income (Expense), net

Other expense, net for the year ended January 31, 2022 decreased primarily due to the adoption of the new accounting standard for convertible senior notes, which eliminated the amortization of the debt discount previously associated with our 0.75% convertible senior notes due 2024 and 0.25% convertible senior notes due 2026.

Provision for Income Taxes

The provision for income taxes during the year ended January 31, 2022 and January 31, 2021 was primarily due to foreign taxes as we continued our global expansion. The overall provision for income taxes decreased for the year ended January 31, 2022, due to a reduction in the valuation allowance as a result of goodwill from an immaterial business combination and the impact from the adoption of ASU 2020-06, partly offset by higher foreign taxes.

Comparison of the Years Ended January 31, 2021 and 2020

For a discussion of our results of operations for the year ended January 31, 2021 as compared to the year ended January 31, 2020, refer to Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, of our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 22, 2021.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

As of January 31, 2022, our principal sources of liquidity were cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and restricted cash totaling $1.8 billion. Our cash and cash equivalents primarily consist of bank deposits and money market funds. Our short-term investments consist of U.S. government treasury securities and our restricted cash represents collateral for our available credit on corporate credit cards. We believe our existing cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund our operating and capital needs for at least the next 12 months.

On June 29, 2021, we entered into an underwriting agreement with Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, as representatives of the several underwriters named therein, pursuant to which we agreed to issue and sell 2,500,000 shares of our Class A common stock, par value $0.001 per share, at an offering price of $365.00 per share. We received net proceeds of $889.2 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions of $22.7 million and offering expenses of $0.6 million. Offering expenses included legal, accounting and other fees.

In January 2020, we issued $1.15 billion aggregate principal amount of 0.25% convertible senior notes due 2026 in a private placement (the “2026 Notes”). In June 2018, we issued $250.0 million aggregate principal amount of 0.75% convertible senior notes due 2024 in a private placement and, in July 2018, we issued an additional $50.0 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes pursuant to the exercise in full of the initial purchasers’ option to purchase additional convertible senior notes (collectively, the “2024 Notes”). The total net proceeds from the issuance of the 2026

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Notes and 2024 Notes, after deducting initial purchase discounts and estimated debt issuance costs, were approximately $1.13 billion and $291.1 million, respectively. In connection with the pricing of the 2026 Notes and 2024 Notes, we entered into privately negotiated capped call transactions with certain counterparties (the “Capped Calls”). The Capped Calls are expected to partially offset the potential dilution to our Class A common stock upon any conversion of the 2026 Notes and 2024 Notes, with such offset subject to a cap based on the cap price. We used $92.9 million of the proceeds from the 2026 Notes and $37.1 million of the proceeds from the 2024 Notes to purchase the Capped Calls, which was recorded as a reduction to additional paid-in capital.

On January 14, 2020, in connection with the issuance of the 2026 Notes, we used a portion of the net proceeds to repurchase $210.0 million aggregate principal amount of the 2024 Notes (“2024 Notes Partial Repurchase”) leaving $90.0 million aggregate principal outstanding on the 2024 Notes as of January 31, 2020. The 2024 Notes Partial Repurchase were not pursuant to a redemption notice and were individually privately negotiated transactions for aggregate cash consideration of $479.2 million.

On October 1, 2021, we issued a notice of redemption (the “Redemption Notice”) for the aggregate principal amount outstanding of its 2024 Notes. We satisfied our conversion obligations with respect to conversions occurring after the date of the Redemption Notice and prior to December 3, 2021 (the “Redemption Date”) by delivering shares of Class A common stock, plus cash in lieu of any resulting fractional shares (physical settlement). Pursuant to the Redemption Notice, on the Redemption Date, we redeemed the outstanding principal of the 2024 Notes that were not converted prior to such date at a redemption price in cash equal to 100% of the principal amount of the 2024 Notes, plus accrued and unpaid interest. Approximately $1.9 million aggregate principal amount outstanding as of October 31, 2021 were converted to 27,377 shares of the Company’s Class A common stock with the remaining balance settled in cash. The extinguishment of the 2024 Notes on December 3, 2021 was immaterial to our financial statements. For further discussion on the 2024 Notes and 2026 Notes, please refer to Note 6, Convertible Senior Notes, in Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, of this Form 10-K.

We have generated significant operating losses and negative cash flows from operations as reflected in our accumulated deficit and historical consolidated statements of cash flows. As of January 31, 2022, we had an accumulated deficit of $1.2 billion. We expect to continue to incur operating losses, may continue to experience negative cash flows from operations in the future and may require additional capital resources to execute strategic initiatives to grow our business. Our future capital requirements and adequacy of available funds will depend on many factors including our growth rate, the timing and extent of spending to support development efforts, the expansion of sales and marketing and international operation activities, the timing and size of new subscription introductions, the continuing market acceptance of our subscriptions and services and the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy and our business, financial condition and results of operations. As the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy and our operations continues to evolve, we will continue to assess our liquidity needs. We may in the future enter into arrangements to acquire or invest in complementary businesses, services and technologies, including intellectual property rights. We may be required to seek additional equity or debt financing. In the event that additional financing is required from outside sources, we may not be able to raise it on terms acceptable to us or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital when desired, our business, operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected.

The following table summarizes our cash flows for the periods presented (in thousands):

Operating Activities

Cash provided by operating activities during the year ended January 31, 2022 was $7.0 million. Our net loss of $306.9 million included non‑cash charges of $251.1 million for stock‑based compensation, $13.7 million for depreciation and amortization, $10.8 million for lease-related charges, $7.5 million for accretion of discount on our short-term investments and $4.0 million for debt issuance costs. In addition, our accrued and other non-current liabilities increased to $63.0 million, driven mainly by increased bonuses and related payroll taxes and higher commissions. The continuing growth of our sales and our expanding customer base led to an increase in deferred revenue of $137.2 million, offset by an increase in deferred

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commissions of $84.7 million and an increase in accounts receivable of $62.3 million. Cash provided by operating activities was negatively impacted by higher prepaid and other current assets of $19.9 million.

Cash used in operating activities during the year ended January 31, 2021 was $42.7 million primarily driven by our net loss of $266.9 million, which was partially offset by non‑cash charges of $149.3 million for stock‑based compensation, $49.1 million for the amortization of our debt discount and issuance costs, $14.2 million for depreciation and amortization and $10.4 million for lease-related non-cash charges. In addition, our accrued and other liabilities increased $41.6 million, primarily from commissions, bonuses and related payroll taxes accrued as of January 31, 2021. The overall growth of our sales and our expanding customer base led to an increase in deferred revenue by $48.2 million, offset by an increase in accounts receivable of $47.6 million and an increase of $41.6 million in deferred commissions.

Investing Activities

Cash used in investing activities during the year ended January 31, 2022 was $852.1 million, primarily due to cash used to purchase marketable securities, net of maturities, of $835.3 million, as a result of the increased cash balance following our June 2021 equity offering, $4.5 million of net cash used for an immaterial acquisition and $4.3 million of cash to purchase non-marketable securities. In addition, we used $8.1 million of cash to purchase property and equipment.

Cash used in investing activities during the year ended January 31, 2021 of $262.7 million resulted from the purchase of marketable securities, net of maturities, $11.8 million used to purchase property and equipment and $0.5 million of net cash used to purchase non-marketable securities.

Financing Activities

Cash provided by financing activities during the year ended January 31, 2022 was $890.9 million, primarily due to $889.2 million net proceeds from our June 2021 equity offering, $25.2 million of proceeds from the issuance of common stock under the Employee Stock Purchase Plan and $9.7 million of proceeds from the exercises of stock options, partially offset by $5.6 million principal repayments of finance leases, as well as $27.6 million used to repay a portion of our 2024 convertible notes upon redemption.

Cash provided by financing activities during the year ended January 31, 2021 was $27.6 million, primarily due to $18.5 million of proceeds from the issuance of common stock under the Employee Stock Purchase Plan and $17.0 million of proceeds from the exercises of stock options, partially offset by $4.6 million principal repayments of finance leases, as well as $4.2 million used for payments of issuance costs related to our January 2020 offering of 0.25% convertible senior notes due 2026 that had been accrued as of January 31, 2020.

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Contractual Obligations and Commitments

The following table summarizes our contractual obligations as of January 31, 2022 (in thousands):

At January 31, 2022, our material short-term and long-term cash requirements for various contractual obligations and commitments consisted of the following:

•principal and future interest payments related to our 2026 Notes;

•our purchase obligations under non-cancelable agreements for cloud infrastructure capacity commitments and subscription and marketing services. In January 2022, we expanded our enterprise partnership arrangement with a cloud infrastructure provider that includes a non-cancelable commitment of $1.1 billion over the next six years, which commenced during February 2022;

•our finance and operating lease obligations under non-cancelable leases for office space expiring through 2032; and

•accounts payable and accrued liabilities on our consolidated balance sheet (primarily short-term in nature).

For further details of our contractual obligations and lease agreements, refer to our Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, within Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data of this Form 10-K, specifically Note 6, Convertible Senior Notes, Note 7, Leases and Note 8, Commitments and Contingencies.

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Critical Accounting Estimates

Our financial statements are prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, expenses and related disclosures. We evaluate our estimates and assumptions on an ongoing basis. Our estimates are based on historical experience and various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Our actual results could differ from these estimates.

The critical accounting estimates, assumptions and judgments that we believe have the most significant impact on our consolidated financial statements are described below.

Revenue Recognition

We derive our revenue from two sources: (1) sales of subscriptions, including term license and post-contract customer support (“PCS”) and consumption-based database-as-a-service offerings; and (2) services revenue comprised of consulting and training arrangements. We recognize revenue when our customer obtains control of promised goods or services in an amount that reflects the consideration that we expect to receive in exchange for those goods or services. In determining the appropriate amount of revenue to be recognized as we fulfill our obligations under each of our agreements, we perform the following steps:

i.Identification of the contract, or contracts, with a customer. We contract with our customers through order forms, which are governed by master sales agreements. We determine we have a contract with a customer when the contract is approved, each party’s rights regarding the products or services to be transferred is identified, the payment terms for the services can be identified, we have determined the customer has the ability and intent to pay and the contract has commercial substance. We apply judgment in determining the customer’s ability and intent to pay, which is based on a variety of factors, including the customer’s historical payment experience or, in the case of a new customer, credit, reputation and financial or other information pertaining to the customer. At contract inception, we evaluate whether two or more contracts should be combined and accounted for as a single contract and whether the combined or single contract includes more than one performance obligation. We have concluded that our contracts with customers do not contain warranties that give rise to a separate performance obligation.

ii.Identification of the performance obligations in the contract. Performance obligations promised in a contract are identified based on the services or products that will be transferred to the customer that are both (1) capable of being distinct, whereby the customer can benefit from the service or product either on its own or together with other resources that are readily available from third parties or from us and (2) distinct in the context of the contract, whereby the transfer of the services or products is separately identifiable from other promises in the contract. To the extent a contract includes multiple promised services or products, we apply judgment to determine whether promised services or products are capable of being distinct and distinct in the context of the contract. If these criteria are not met, the promised services or products are accounted for as a combined performance obligation.

iii.Determination of the transaction price. The transaction price is determined based on the consideration to which we expect to be entitled in exchange for transferring services and products to the customer. Variable consideration is included in the transaction price if, in our judgment, it is probable that a significant future reversal of cumulative revenue under the contract will not occur. None of our contracts contain a significant financing component.

iv.Allocation of the transaction price to the performance obligations in the contract. If the contract contains a single performance obligation, the entire transaction price is allocated to the single performance obligation. For contracts that contain multiple performance obligations, we allocate the transaction price to each performance obligation based on a relative standalone selling price (“SSP”) basis. We also consider if there are any additional material rights inherent in a contract and if so, we allocate a portion of the transaction price to such rights based on SSP. We determine each SSP based on multiple factors, including past history of selling such performance obligations as standalone products. We estimate SSP for performance obligations with no observable evidence using adjusted market, cost plus and residual methods to establish the SSPs. In cases where directly observable standalone sales are not available, we utilize all observable data points including competitor pricing for a similar or identical product, market and industry data points and our pricing practices to establish the SSP.

v.Recognition of revenue when, or as, we satisfy a performance obligation. We recognize revenue at the time the related performance obligation is satisfied when control of the services or products are transferred to the customers,

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in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to be entitled to in exchange for those services or products. We record our revenue net of any value added or sales tax.

Business Combinations

We use our best estimates and assumptions to assign fair value to the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed as of the acquisition date. The excess of the fair value of purchase consideration over the fair values of the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recorded as goodwill. These estimates are inherently uncertain and subject to refinement. During the measurement period, which may be up to one year from the acquisition date, we may record adjustments to the fair value of these tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed, with the corresponding offset to goodwill. In addition, uncertain tax positions and tax-related valuation allowances are initially established in connection with a business combination as of the acquisition date. Upon the conclusion of the measurement period or final determination of the fair value of assets acquired or liabilities assumed, whichever comes first, any subsequent adjustments are recorded to our consolidated statements of operations. Acquisition-related expenses are recognized separately from the business combination and are expensed as incurred.