Zscaler, Inc. (ZS) FY 2021 MD&A

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

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. As discussed in the section titled "Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements," the following discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed below. Factors that could cause or contribute to such difference include, but are not limited to, those identified below and those discussed in the section titled "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our fiscal year end is July 31, and our fiscal quarters end on October 31, January 31, April 30 and July 31. Our fiscal years ended July 31, 2021, July 31, 2020 and July 31, 2019 are referred to as fiscal 2021, fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2019, respectively.

Overview

Zscaler was incorporated in 2007, during the early stages of cloud adoption and mobility, based on a vision that the internet would become the new corporate network as the cloud becomes the new data center. We predicted that with rapid cloud adoption and increasing workforce mobility, traditional perimeter security approaches would provide inadequate protection for users and data and an increasingly poor user experience. We pioneered a cloud platform, the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, that represents a fundamental shift in the architectural design and approach to networking and security.

We generate revenue primarily from sales of subscriptions to access our cloud platform, together with related support services. We also generate an immaterial amount of revenue from professional and other services, which consist primarily of fees associated with mapping, implementation, network design and training. Our subscription pricing is primarily calculated on a per-user basis. We recognize subscription and support revenue ratably over the life of the contract, which is generally one to three years. As of July 31, 2021, we had expanded our operations to over 5,600 customers across major industries, with users in 185 countries. Government agencies and some of the largest enterprises in the world rely on us to support their digital transformation, including more than 500 of the Forbes Global 2000 as of July 31, 2021.

We operate our business as one reportable segment. Our revenue has experienced significant growth in recent periods. For fiscal 2021, fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2019, our revenue was $673.1 million, $431.3 million and $302.8 million, respectively. We have incurred net losses in all periods since our inception. For fiscal 2021, fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2019, our net loss was $262.0 million, $115.1 million and $28.7 million, respectively. We expect we will continue to incur net losses for the foreseeable future, as we continue to invest in our sales and marketing organization to take advantage of our market opportunity, to invest in research and development efforts to enhance the functionality of our cloud platform, to incur additional compliance and other related costs as we operate as a public company, and to address any legal matters and related accruals, as further described in Note 11, Commitments and Contingencies, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Impacts of COVID-19

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a pandemic. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have modified certain aspects of our business, including restricting employee travel, requiring employees to work from home, transitioning our employee onboarding and training processes to remote or online programs, and canceling certain events and meetings, among other modifications. We will continue to actively monitor and evaluate the situation and may take further actions that alter our business operations as may be required by federal, state or local authorities or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, partners, suppliers and stockholders. The effects of these operational modifications are unknown and may not be known until future reporting periods. While we have not experienced significant disruptions to our operations or financial performance from the COVID-19 pandemic to date, we are unable to accurately predict the full impact that COVID-19 will have due to numerous uncertainties, including the duration of the outbreak, the current or a future resurgence of the outbreak in connection with new variants and mutations,

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the widespread distribution and long-term efficacy of vaccines, the efficacy of vaccines against new variants or mutations, actions that may be taken by governmental authorities, the impact on our business including our sales cycle, sales execution and marketing efforts, and the impact to the business of our customers, vendors and partners. For further discussion of the challenges and risks we confront related to the COVID-19 pandemic, please refer to Part I, Item 1A Risk Factors of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Certain Factors Affecting Our Performance

Increased Internet Traffic and Adoption of Cloud-Based Software and Security

The adoption of cloud applications and infrastructure, explosion of internet traffic volumes and shift to mobile-first computing generally, and the pace at which enterprises adopt the internet as their corporate network in particular, impact our ability to drive market adoption of our cloud platform. We believe that most enterprises are in the early stages of a broad transformation to the cloud. Organizations are increasingly relying on the internet to operate their businesses, deploying new SaaS applications and migrating internally managed line-of-business applications to the cloud. However, the growing dependence on the internet has increased exposure to malicious or compromised websites, and sophisticated hackers are exploiting the gaps left by legacy network security appliances. To securely access the internet and transform their networks, organizations must also make fundamental changes in their network and security architectures. We believe that most organizations have yet to fully make these investments. Since we enable organizations to securely embrace digital transformation, we believe that the imperative for organizations to securely move to the cloud will increase demand for our cloud platform and broaden our customer base.

New Customer Acquisition

We believe that our ability to increase the number of customers, and more significantly customers in the Forbes Global 2000, on our cloud platform is an indicator of our market penetration and our future business opportunities. As of July 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, we had over 5,600, 4,500 and over 3,900 customers, respectively, across all major geographies. As of July 31, 2021, we had over 500 of the Forbes Global 2000 as customers. Our ability to continue to grow these numbers will increase our future opportunities for renewals and follow-on sales. We believe that we have significant room to capture additional market share and intend to continue to invest significantly in sales and marketing to engage our prospective customers, increase brand awareness, further leverage our channel partnerships and drive adoption of our solution.

Follow-On Sales

We typically expand our relationship with our customers over time. While most of our new customers route all of their internet-bound web traffic through our cloud platform, some of our customers initially use our services for specific users or specific security functionality. We leverage our land-and-expand model with the goal of generating incremental revenue, often within the term of the initial subscription, by increasing sales to our existing customers in one of three ways:

•expanding deployment of our cloud platform to cover additional users;

•upgrading to a more advanced Business or Transformation edition; and

•selling a subscription to a new solution or product, for example selling a ZPA subscription to a ZIA customer or a ZIA subscription to a ZPA customer.

These purchases increase the Annual Recurring Revenue ("ARR") attributable to our customers over time. To establish ARR for a customer, we use the total amount of each order booked to compute the annual recurring value of revenue that we would recognize if the customer continues to renew all contractual subscriptions. For example, a contract for $3.0 million with a contractual term of three years would have ARR of $1.0 million as long as our customer uses our cloud platform.

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Investing in Business Growth

Since our founding, we have invested significantly in growing our business. We intend to continue (i) investing in our research and development organization and our development efforts to offer new solutions on our cloud platform and (ii) dedicating resources to update and upgrade our existing solutions. In addition, we expect our general and administrative expenses to increase in absolute dollars in the foreseeable future, as we continue to operate as a public company and address any legal matters and related accruals, as further described in Note 11, Commitments and Contingencies, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We also intend to continue to invest significantly in sales and marketing to grow and train our sales force, broaden our brand awareness and expand and deepen our channel partner relationships. While these planned investments will increase our operating expenses in the short term, we believe that over the long term these investments will help us to expand our customer base and grow our business. We also are investing in programs to increase recognition of our brand and solutions, including joint marketing activities with our channel partners and strategic partners.

While we expect our operating expenses to increase in absolute dollars in the foreseeable future, as a result of these activities, we intend to balance these investments in future growth with a continued focus on managing our results of operations and investing judiciously. In the long term we anticipate that these investments will positively impact our business and results of operations.

Key Business Metrics and Other Financial Measures

We review a number of operating and financial metrics, including the following key metrics, to measure our performance, identify trends, formulate business plans and make strategic decisions.

Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate

We believe that dollar-based net retention rate is a key metric to measure the long-term value of our customer relationships because it is driven by our ability to retain and expand the recurring revenue generated from our existing customers. Our dollar-based net retention rate compares the recurring revenue from a set of customers against the same metric for the prior 12-month period on a trailing basis. Because our customers have repeat buying patterns and the average term of our contracts is more than 12 months, we measure this metric over a set of customers who were with us as of the last day of the same reporting period in the prior fiscal year. Our dollar-based net retention rate includes customer attrition. We have not experienced a material increase in customer attrition rates in recent periods.

We calculate our dollar-based net retention rate as follows:

•Denominator: To calculate our dollar-based net retention rate as of the end of a reporting period, we first establish the ARR from all active subscriptions as of the last day of the same reporting period in the prior fiscal year. This effectively represents recurring dollars that we expect in the next 12-month period from the cohort of customers that existed on the last day of the same reporting period in the prior fiscal year.

•Numerator: We measure the ARR for that same cohort of customers representing all subscriptions based on confirmed customer orders booked by us as of the end of the reporting period.

Dollar-based net retention rate is obtained by dividing the numerator by the denominator. Our dollar-based net retention rate may fluctuate due to a number of factors, including the performance of our cloud platform, our success in selling bigger deals, including deals for all employees with our higher-end bundles, selling multiple-pillars from the start of our contract

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with new customers, faster upsells within a year, the timing and the rate of ARR expansion of our existing customers, potential changes in our rate of renewals and other risk factors described elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to our results determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP, we believe the following non-GAAP measures are useful in evaluating our operating performance. We use the following non-GAAP financial information to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. We believe that non-GAAP financial information, when taken collectively, may be helpful to investors because it provides consistency and comparability with past financial performance. However, non-GAAP financial information is presented for supplemental informational purposes only, has limitations as an analytical tool and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. In particular, free cash flow is not a substitute for cash provided by operating activities. Additionally, the utility of free cash flow as a measure of our liquidity is further limited as it does not represent the total increase or decrease in our cash balance for a given period. In addition, other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate similarly-titled non-GAAP measures differently or may use other measures to evaluate their performance, all of which could reduce the usefulness of our non-GAAP financial measures as tools for comparison. A reconciliation is provided below for each non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable financial measure stated in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Investors are encouraged to review the related U.S. GAAP financial measures and the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures, and not to rely on any single financial measure to evaluate our business.

Non-GAAP Gross Profit and Non-GAAP Gross Margin

We define non-GAAP gross profit as U.S. GAAP gross profit excluding stock-based compensation expense and related payroll taxes and amortization expense of acquired intangible assets. We define non-GAAP gross margin as non-GAAP gross profit as a percentage of revenue.

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Non-GAAP Income from Operations and Non-GAAP Operating Margin

We define non-GAAP income from operations as U.S. GAAP loss from operations excluding stock-based compensation expense and related payroll taxes, certain litigation-related expenses, amortization expense of acquired intangible assets and asset impairment related to facility exit. We define non-GAAP operating margin as non-GAAP income from operations as a percentage of revenue. The excluded litigation-related expenses are professional fees and related costs incurred by us in defending or settling against significant claims that we deem not to be in the ordinary course of our business and, if applicable, accruals related to estimated losses in connection with these claims. There are many uncertainties and potential outcomes associated with any litigation, including the expense of litigation, timing of such expenses, court rulings, unforeseen developments, complications and delays, each of which may affect our results of operations from period to period, as well as the unknown magnitude of the potential loss relating to any lawsuit, all of which are inherently subject to change, difficult to estimate and could adversely affect our results of operations.

(1) Consists of asset impairment charges related to the relocation of our corporate headquarters.

Change in Non-GAAP Measures Presentation

Effective August 1, 2020, the beginning of our fiscal year ending July 31, 2021, we began to present employer payroll taxes related to employee equity award transactions, which is a cash expense, as part of stock-based compensation expense in our non-GAAP results. These payroll taxes have been excluded from our non-GAAP results as they are tied to the timing and size of the exercise or vesting of the underlying equity awards and the price of our common stock at the time of vesting or exercise, which may vary from period to period independent of the operating performance of our business. Prior period amounts have been recast to conform to this presentation.

Free Cash Flow and Free Cash Flow Margin

Free cash flow is a non-GAAP financial measure that we calculate as net cash provided by operating activities less purchases of property, equipment and other assets and capitalized internal-use software. Free cash flow margin is calculated as free cash flow divided by revenue. We believe that free cash flow and free cash flow margin are useful indicators of liquidity that provide information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated from our operations that, after the investments in property, equipment and other assets and capitalized internal-use software, can be used for strategic initiatives, including investing in our business, and strengthening our financial position.

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Free cash flow includes the cyclical impact of inflows and outflows resulting from contributions to our employee stock purchase plan, for which the purchase period of approximately six months ends in each of our second and fourth fiscal quarter. As of July 31, 2021, the accrued employee payroll contributions to our ESPP was $5.2 million, which will be used to purchase shares at the end of the current purchase period ending on December 15, 2022. Payroll contributions ultimately used to purchase shares will be reclassified to stockholders' equity upon issuance of the shares during our second quarter of fiscal 2022.

Calculated Billings

Calculated billings is a non-GAAP financial measure that we believe is a key metric to measure our periodic performance. Calculated billings represents our total revenue plus the change in deferred revenue in a period. Calculated billings in any particular period aims to reflect amounts invoiced for subscriptions to access our cloud platform, together with related support services for our new and existing customers. We typically invoice our customers annually in advance, and to a lesser extent quarterly in advance, monthly in advance or multi-year in advance. Calculated billings increased $384.1 million, or 70%, in fiscal 2021 over fiscal 2020, and $159.8 million, or 41%, in fiscal 2020 over fiscal 2019. As calculated billings continues to grow in absolute terms, we expect our calculated billings growth rate to trend down over time. We also expect that calculated billings will be affected by seasonality in terms of when we enter into agreements with customers; and the mix of billings in each reporting period as we typically invoice customers annually in advance, and to a lesser extent quarterly in advance, monthly in advance or multi-year in advance.

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Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

We generate revenue primarily from sales of subscriptions to access our cloud platform, together with related support services. These subscription and related support services accounted for approximately 97%, 98% and 99% of our revenue for fiscal 2021, fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2019, respectively. Our contracts with our customers do not at any time provide the customer with the right to take possession of the software that runs our cloud platform. Our customers may also purchase professional services, such as mapping, implementation, network design and training. Professional services account for an immaterial portion of our revenue.

We generate revenue from contracts with typical durations ranging from one to three years. We typically invoice our customers annually in advance, and to a lesser extent quarterly in advance, monthly in advance or multi-year in advance. We recognize revenue ratably over the life of the contract. Amounts that have been invoiced are recorded in deferred revenue, or they are recorded in revenue if the revenue recognition criteria have been met. Subscriptions that are invoiced annually in advance or multi-year in advance represent a significant portion of our short-term and long-term deferred revenue in comparison to invoices issued quarterly in advance or monthly in advance. Accordingly, we cannot predict the mix of invoicing schedules in any given period.

We generally experience seasonality in terms of when we enter into agreements with our customers. We typically enter into a higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as renewal agreements with existing customers, in our second and fourth fiscal quarters. However, because we recognize revenue ratably over the terms of our subscription contracts, a substantial portion of the revenue that we report in each period is attributable to the recognition of deferred revenue relating to agreements that we entered into during previous periods. Consequently, increases or decreases in new sales or renewals in any one period may not be immediately reflected as revenue for that period. Accordingly, the effect of downturns in sales and market acceptance of our platform, and potential changes in our rate of renewals, may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods.

Cost of Revenue

Cost of revenue includes expenses related to operating our cloud platform in data centers, depreciation of our data center equipment, related overhead costs and the amortization of our capitalized internal-use software. Cost of revenue also includes employee-related costs, including salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation expense and employee benefit costs associated with our customer support and cloud operations organizations. Cost of revenue also includes overhead costs for facilities, IT, amortization and depreciation expense.

As our customers expand and increase the use of our cloud platform driven by additional applications and connected devices, our cost of revenue will increase due to higher bandwidth and data center expenses. However, we expect to continue to benefit from economies of scale as our customers increase the use of our cloud platform. We intend to continue to invest additional resources in our cloud platform and our customer support organizations as we grow our business. The level and timing of investment in these areas could affect our cost of revenue in the future.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross profit, or revenue less cost of revenue, and gross margin, or gross profit as a percentage of revenue, have been and will continue to be affected by various factors, including the timing of our acquisition of new customers and our renewals of and follow-on sales to existing customers, the average sales price of our services, mix of services offered in our solutions, including new product introductions, the data center and bandwidth costs associated with operating our cloud platform, the

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extent to which we expand our customer support and cloud operations organizations and the extent to which we can increase the efficiency of our technology, infrastructure and data centers through technological improvements. We expect our gross profit to increase in absolute dollars and our gross margin to increase slightly over the long term, although our gross profit and gross margin could fluctuate from period to period depending on the interplay of all of the above factors.

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 operating expenses and consist of salaries, benefits, bonuses, stock-based compensation expense and, with respect to sales and marketing expenses, sales commissions that are recognized as expenses over the period of benefit. Operating expenses also include overhead costs for facilities, IT, depreciation expense and amortization expense.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of employee compensation and related expenses, including salaries, bonuses and benefits for our sales and marketing employees, sales commissions that are recognized as expenses over the period of benefit, stock-based compensation expense, marketing programs, travel and entertainment expenses, expenses for conferences and events and allocated overhead costs. We capitalize our sales commissions and associated payroll taxes and recognize them as expenses over the estimated period of benefit. The amount recognized in our sales and marketing expenses reflects the amortization of costs previously deferred as attributable to each period presented in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as described below under "Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates."

We intend to continue to make significant investments in our sales and marketing organization to drive additional revenue, further penetrate the market and expand our global customer base. As a result, we expect our sales and marketing expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars and to be our largest operating expense category for the foreseeable future. In particular, we will continue to invest in growing and training our sales force, broadening our brand awareness and expanding and deepening our channel partner relationships. However, we expect our sales and marketing expenses to decrease as a percentage of our revenue over the long term, although our sales and marketing expenses may fluctuate as a percentage of our revenue from period to period due to the timing and extent of these expenses.

Research and Development

Our research and development expenses support our efforts to add new features to our existing offerings and to ensure the reliability, availability and scalability of our solutions. Our cloud platform is software-driven, and our research and development teams employ software engineers in the design, and the related development, testing, certification and support, of these solutions. Accordingly, a majority of our research and development expenses result from employee-related costs, including salaries, bonuses and benefits, stock-based compensation expense and costs associated with technology tools used by our engineers. We expect our research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future, as we continue to invest in research and development efforts to enhance the functionality of our cloud platform, improve the reliability, availability and scalability of our platform and access new customer markets. However, we expect our research and development expenses to decrease as a percentage of our revenue over the long term, although our research and development expenses may fluctuate as a percentage of our revenue from period to period due to the timing and extent of these expenses.

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General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of employee-related costs, including salaries and bonuses, stock-based compensation expense and employee benefit costs for our finance, legal, human resources and administrative personnel, as well as professional fees for external legal services (including certain litigation-related expenses), accounting and other related consulting services. The litigation-related expenses include professional fees and related costs incurred by us in defending or settling significant claims that we deem not to be in the ordinary course of our business and, if applicable, accruals related to estimated losses in connection with these claims. We expect our general and administrative expenses to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future, as we continue to incur compliance costs and other related costs necessary to operate as a public company, and due to any legal matters and related accruals, as further described in Note 11, Commitments and Contingencies to, the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. However, we expect our general and administrative expenses to decrease as a percentage of our revenue over the long term, although our general and administrative expenses may fluctuate as a percentage of our revenue from period to period due to the timing and extent of these expenses. In particular, litigation-related expenses related to significant litigation claims may result in significant fluctuations from period to period as they are inherently subject to change and difficult to estimate.

Interest Expense

Interest expense consists primarily of amortization of debt discount and issuance costs and recognition of contractual interest expense related to our Notes issued in June 2020. See Note 9, Convertible Senior Notes, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Interest Income

Interest income consists primarily of income earned on our cash equivalents and short-term investments.

Other Income (Expense), Net

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

Provision for Income Taxes

Our provision for income taxes consists primarily of income and withholding taxes in the foreign jurisdictions in which we conduct business, offset by the tax benefit for excess stock-based compensation deduction. We have not recorded any U.S. federal income tax expense. In the United States, we have recorded deferred tax assets for which we provide a full valuation allowance, which includes net operating loss carryforwards and research and development tax credits. We expect to maintain this full valuation allowance for the foreseeable future as it is more likely than not that some or all of those deferred tax assets may not be realized based on our history of losses. Additionally, in the U.K., we have recorded deferred tax assets for which we provide a full valuation allowance, which includes net operating loss carryforwards. We expect to maintain this full valuation allowance for the foreseeable future as it is more likely than not that some or all of those deferred tax assets may not be realized based on our history of losses.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our results of operations for the periods presented:

_____

(1) Includes stock-based compensation expense and related payroll taxes as follows:

(2) Includes amortization expense of acquired intangible assets as follows:

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The following table sets forth our results of operations for the periods presented as a percentage of our revenue:

Comparison of Fiscal 2021 and Fiscal 2020

Revenue

Revenue increased by $241.8 million, or 56%, in fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020. The increase in revenue was driven by an increase in users and sales of additional subscriptions to existing customers, which contributed $179.5 million in revenue, as reflected by our dollar-based net retention rate of 128% for the trailing 12 months ended July 31, 2021. The remainder of the increase was attributable to the addition of new customers, as we increased our customer base by 23% from July 31, 2020 to July 31, 2021.

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Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin

Cost of revenue increased by $54.6 million, or 57%, in fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020. The overall increase in cost of revenue was driven primarily by the expanded use of our cloud platform by existing and new customers, which led to an increase of $37.2 million for data center and equipment related costs for hosting and operating our cloud platform. Additionally, our employee-related expenses increased by $17.2 million, inclusive of an increase of $6.7 million in stock-based compensation expense, driven primarily by a 48% increase in headcount in our customer support and cloud operations organizations from July 31, 2020 to July 31, 2021.

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing Expenses

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $181.4 million, or 65%, for fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020. The increase was primarily due to a 59% increase in headcount from July 31, 2020 to July 31, 2021, resulting in an increase of $176.9 million in employee-related expenses, inclusive of an increase of $66.6 million in stock-based compensation expense, and an increase of $20.8 million in sales commissions expense. The remainder of the increase was primarily attributable to increased expenses of $6.6 million for facility and IT services and $4.6 million for professional services and $1.8 million in marketing and advertising expenses. Expense increases were partially offset by the decrease of $9.4 million in travel expenses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses increased by $76.8 million, or 78%, for fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020 as we continued to develop and enhance the functionality of our cloud platform. The increase was primarily driven by an increase of $71.4 million in employee-related expenses, inclusive of an increase of $37.6 million in stock-based compensation expense, driven by a 59% increase in headcount from July 31, 2020 to July 31, 2021. The remainder of the increase was primarily attributable to increased expenses of $5.1 million in facility, software and equipment related expenses to support our growth and $2.2 million for professional services. This increase was partially offset by higher capitalized internal-use software development costs of $1.4 million to support the enhancement and growth of our cloud platform.

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General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses increased by $22.9 million, or 31%, for fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020. The overall increase was primarily due to an increase of $37.1 million in employee-related expenses, inclusive of an increase of $26.2 million in stock-based compensation expense, driven in part by a 46% increase in headcount from July 31, 2020 to July 31, 2021. The remainder of the increase was primarily attributable to increased expenses of $2.7 million in professional services. This increase is partially offset by a decrease of $18.0 million in legal expenses, primarily attributable to a $15.0 million litigation settlement payment to Broadcom during fiscal 2020. For further information on the Broadcom settlement refer to Note 11, Commitments and Contingencies, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report Form 10-K.

Interest Expense

Interest expense increased by $48.3 million for fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020 as a result of amortization of debt discount and recognition of contractual interest expense related to our Notes issued in June 2020. For further information on the Notes, refer to Note 9, Convertible Senior Notes, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Interest Income

Interest income decreased by $3.7 million, or 57%, for fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020. The decrease was primarily driven by lower market interest rates earned on cash equivalents and short-term investments.

Other Income (expense), net

Other income (expense), net increased by $1.4 million for fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020. The increase was primarily driven by fluctuations in foreign currency transaction gains and losses.

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Provision for Income Taxes

Our provision for income taxes increased by $2.5 million, or 103%, for fiscal 2021, compared to fiscal 2020, primarily related to income and withholding taxes in the foreign jurisdictions in which we operate. In fiscal 2020, we recognized a non-recurring income tax benefit associated with the acquisition of intangible assets from Cloudneeti Corporation ("Cloudneeti") and Edgewise Networks Inc. ("Edgewise") which reduced our income tax expense as compared to 2021. For further information, refer to Note 14, Income Taxes, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our effective tax rate of (1.9)% and (2.1)% in fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2020, respectively, differs from the applicable U.S. statutory federal income tax rate due to our valuation allowance against our U.S. federal, state, and U.K. deferred tax assets as well as our foreign income being taxed at different rates than the U.S. statutory rate.

While we believe our current valuation allowance is sufficient, we assess the need for an adjustment to the valuation allowance on a quarterly basis. The assessment is based on our estimates of future sources of taxable income for the jurisdictions in which we operate and the periods over which our deferred tax assets will be realizable. In the event we determine that we will be able to realize all or part of our net deferred tax assets in the future, the valuation allowance will be reversed in the period in which we make such determination. The release of a valuation allowance against deferred tax assets may cause greater volatility in the effective tax rate in the periods in which it is reversed.

Comparison of Fiscal 2020 and Fiscal 2019

Revenue

Revenue increased by $128.4 million, or 42%, in fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019. The increase in revenue was driven by an increase in users and sales of additional subscriptions to existing customers, which contributed $98.6 million in revenue, as reflected by our dollar-based net retention rate of 120% for the trailing 12 months ended July 31, 2020. The remainder of the increase was attributable to the addition of new customers, as we increased our customer base by 17% from July 31, 2019 to July 31, 2020.

Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin

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Cost of revenue increased by $36.1 million, or 60%, for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019. The overall increase in cost of revenue was driven primarily by the expanded use of our cloud platform by existing and new customers, which led to an increase of $24.8 million for data center and equipment related costs for hosting and operating our cloud platform. Additionally, our employee-related expenses increased by $10.0 million, inclusive of an increase of $4.4 million in stock-based compensation expense, driven primarily by a 6% increase in headcount in our customer support and cloud operations organizations from July 31, 2019 to July 31, 2020 and by the shift from granting stock options to restricted stock units.

Gross margin decreased from 80% to 78% in fiscal 2020 as compared to fiscal 2019. The decline in gross margin is primarily due to the cost incurred for our increased use of public cloud infrastructure to manage the increased ZPA traffic which resulted from our customers' employees working from home beginning March 2020. While the public cloud allows us to quickly meet increases in customer demand, using public cloud infrastructure to manage traffic is significantly more expensive compared to using our data centers.

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing Expenses

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $108.1 million, or 64%, for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019. The increase was primarily due to a 54% increase in headcount from July 31, 2019 to July 31, 2020, resulting in an increase of $92.6 million in employee-related expenses, inclusive of an increase of $43.4 million in stock-based compensation expense, and an increase of $9.7 million in sales commissions expense. Additionally, our sales and marketing expenses increased by $7.0 million primarily due to growth of certain major sales and marketing events held during fiscal 2020, including our Zenith Live events. The remainder of the increase was primarily attributable to increased expenses of $2.2 million in costs related to in-person and virtual events and $3.9 million for facility and IT services.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses increased by $35.9 million, or 58%, for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019 as we continued to develop and enhance the functionality of our cloud platform. The increase was primarily driven by an increase of $34.7 million in employee-related expenses, inclusive of an increase of $15.1 million in stock-based compensation expense, driven by a 38% increase in headcount from July 31, 2019 to July 31, 2020 and by our shift from granting stock options to granting restricted stock units. The remainder of the increase was primarily attributable to increased expenses of $4.4 million for facility, software and equipment related expenses to support our growth. Expense increases were partially offset by higher capitalized internal-use software development costs of $5.6 million to support the enhancement and growth of our cloud platform.

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General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses increased by $27.0 million, or 58%, for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019. The overall increase was primarily due to an increase of $16.4 million in employee-related expenses, inclusive of a net increase of $12.1 million in stock-based compensation expense, driven by a 29% increase in headcount from July 31, 2019 to July 31, 2020, and also by our shift from granting stock options to granting restricted stock units. Additionally, we recognized an increase of $5.2 million in legal expenses, which is primarily attributable to a $15.0 million litigation settlement payment to Broadcom in fiscal 2020, partially offset by lower legal fees in fiscal 2020. For further information on litigation settlements, refer to Note 11, Commitments and Contingencies, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The remainder of the increase was primarily attributable to $1.9 million in professional services and $1.2 million for insurance premiums.

Interest Expense

Interest expense increased by $5.0 million or 100% for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019. The increase is due to amortization of debt discount and contractual interest expense for our Notes issued in June 2020. For further information on the Notes, refer to Note 9, Convertible Senior Notes, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Interest Income

Interest income decreased by $1.3 million, or 16%, for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019. The decrease was primarily driven by lower market interest rates earned on cash equivalents and short-term investments.

Other Income (Expense), net

Other income (expense), net increased by $0.1 million, or 32%, for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019. The increase was primarily driven by fluctuations in foreign currency transaction gains and losses for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019.

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Provision for Income Taxes

Our provision for income taxes increased by $1.6 million, or 221%, for fiscal 2020, compared to fiscal 2019, primarily related to income and withholding taxes in the foreign jurisdictions in which we operate. The overall income tax expense recorded for fiscal 2020 was driven by income taxes for the foreign countries in which we operate partially offset by the tax benefit associated with the acquisition of intangible assets from Cloudneeti Corporation ("Cloudneeti") and Edgewise Networks Inc. ("Edgewise") which reduced our deferred tax asset and the related valuation allowance. For further information, refer to Note 14, Income Taxes, of the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our effective tax rate of (2.1)% and (2.7)% in fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2019, respectively, differs from the applicable U.S. statutory federal income tax rate due to our valuation allowance against our U.S. federal, state, and U.K. deferred tax assets as well as our foreign income being taxed at different rates than the U.S. statutory rate.

While we believe our valuation allowance is sufficient, we assess the need for an adjustment to the valuation allowance on a quarterly basis. The assessment is based on our estimates of future sources of taxable income for the jurisdictions in which we operate and the periods over which our deferred tax assets will be realizable. In the event we determine that we will be able to realize all or part of our net deferred tax assets in the future, the valuation allowance will be reversed in the period in which we make such determination. The release of a valuation allowance against deferred tax assets may cause greater volatility in the effective tax rate in the periods in which it is reversed.

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Quarterly Results of Operations and Other Data

The following sets forth selected unaudited quarterly consolidated statements of operations data for each of the eight quarters in the period ended July 31, 2021. The unaudited quarterly statements of operations data set forth below have been prepared on the same basis as our audited consolidated financial statements and, in the opinion of management, reflect all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, that are necessary for the fair statement of such data. The following quarterly financial data should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected in the future, and the results for any quarter are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected for a full year or any other period.