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Morgan Stanley US Financials, Payments and CRE Conference

Jun 12, 2023

Speaker 3

Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us for the afternoon sessions of the Morgan Stanley FinTech Conference. Really excited to have nCino here, and representing them, Greg Orenstein, CFO of the company. Before I get started with Greg, I have some important disclosures to read. Please see the Morgan Stanley research disclosure website at morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales rep. Greg, thanks a lot for being here. Appreciate you taking the time and filling us in on everything that's happening at nCino. Seems like there's always a lot happening.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah

Speaker 3

around the company, so it's exciting. Maybe for those of us that are, or those other investors that may be joining us that are newer to the nCino story, can you give us a high-level overview of the business, perhaps with the focus on the two factors that you think are particularly differentiated for nCino? The breadth of financial institutions that you serve, and really the focus on what you plan to do and have done internationally.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Sure. Well, it's great to be here, and thanks, everyone, for your time. At nCino, we provide software to help financial institutions make loans, open accounts, and onboard customers. We do that, and I think what's unique, getting to your question, is ultimately on a single platform, true multi-tenant SaaS, we span with one code base, the smallest community banks in the United States, up to the Bank of America and Wells Fargos, as well as internationally. We've got deployments in 16 different countries. We can address any, size of financial institution. Again, from an international standpoint, same product. We originally planted our first flag outside of the United States in the summer of 2017.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

in the UK We've since expanded into Canada, into Japan, into Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, South Africa, to the point where last quarter, 17% of our revenues were outside of the United States.

Speaker 3

Got it. I want to talk about... This is a common line of questioning we've had really for everybody today, is that of sales cycles. You know, kind of using that as a leading indicator for how your customers feel about their positions in the world generally. And we'll come to RPOs and bookings growth later, but in the last few months, you know, at least some of the events have raised questions of, you know, at least some customers, do they have liquidity concerns? And we've heard tales or comments around sales cycle elongation, including for nCino. Pierre, the CEO, suggested he expects this to be a short-term phenomenon that lasts maybe one to two quarters.

Can you help us deconstruct what gives you know, your confidence in a back-half bookings ramp, and as opposed to a more gradual recovery that, you know, that some people may be wary or concerned could occur?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah, sure. Ultimately, I mean, as we look at our pipelines, we have talked about some slowdown, additional scrutiny on deal cycles, you know, which is, I think, fairly common these days.

Speaker 3

Yeah

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Other folks are seeing. Ultimately, we have not seen deals leave the pipeline. That's one thing. The second thing is, we really saw this start last year in the second quarter in Europe.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Macro issues, obviously the war and concerns about energy. In Q2 and Q3 last year, we saw some slowdown in the sales cycles and pauses. Fast-forward in Q4, in Europe, we had a strong Q4, and we had a very strong Q1. We think that that's, you know, kind of a good footprint, if you will, or baseline to extrapolate from as we think about what we see here in the US. We knew that Q1 was going to be slow. It's seasonally our slowest quarter anyway.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Then, you know, a month into it, the SVB and Signature and ultimately First Republic situations took place, so we really lost a good chunk of that quarter selling. Again, as we look at the activity since then and as we look at what's in the pipe, it gives us confidence. Then the final point is, we were fortunate that just a couple of weeks ago, in May, we had our annual user conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We had over 1,700 people join. Folks came in from 15 different countries.

Speaker 3

That was up pretty significantly.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

It was

Speaker 3

versus last year, right?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

It was. That's right. We moved from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Charlotte to accommodate the demand. We were able to talk with hundreds of our customers in real time about what they were experiencing and what they were seeing, and trying to kind of make sure we appreciated that versus what we were seeing on the news and on CNBC every day, as, you know, certain bank stocks-

Speaker 3

Right, right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... stick stock tickers got put on the screen all the time.

Speaker 3

Got it. Got it. You know, I guess that was a good indicator. You indicated that we hadn't seen anything leave the pipeline. What do you think are the circumstances or the events that will then cause that engagement to re-inflect on from a bookings perspective?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. Ultimately, I think it's just their ability to refocus.

Speaker 3

Mm.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Right? again, we had several say: Just let us catch our breath.

Speaker 3

Got it.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We don't have folks coming to us and saying, "Hey, we don't want to modernize our tech stack.

Speaker 3

Right, right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Right? "We don't want better technology for our end users." Again, we see the demand there. You know, from a sales and marketing perspective, you'd have seen quite a bit of improvement in our R&D line, our G&A line, sales and marketing, you'll still see is in line with last year. That's because of some investments we made in our marketing software infrastructure, but also just in sales. We have more bag-carrying sales folks out on the street today than we did this time last year, that is because of the demand that we see. You know, we've got to go execute.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We do need to get some of those deals over the finish line. But I think as we sit here today, we're confident that they're there to do that.

Speaker 3

Maybe it's tied to the same driver of wanting to modernize. Historically, you know, you will have suggested you can still grow at a healthy clip in an environment with zero loan growth on the part of your customers. I want to ask about the lending standards, particularly given we've seen some further tightening in May, you know, with pending annual capital stress tests and tougher capital rules, you know, the stage seems to be set for at least further tightening on loan growth. How impactful is this dynamic to the prospect of engagement and sale cycle duration, if at all?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Look, I think additional regulatory scrutiny, if you will, or additional regulation has actually been helpful-

Speaker 3

Okay

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... from a sales standpoint because we help our banks comply with regulations. That's one thing. I think the second thing is, as we're in this, you know, this macro and net interest margins are being squeezed, right?

Speaker 3

Yep. Yep.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We make banks more efficient, right? Whether it's a commercial loan, which we have statistic to say that we'll, you'll get cash funded 50% quicker on nCino, or, ultimately, the efficiency of your bank will be 6% lower, right?

Speaker 3

Right, right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Which is better. Using nCino versus a not nCino bank, we really think it reinforces the value proposition of our single platform offering.

Speaker 3

Got it. Got it. Got it. Let's talk about looking forward to 2025, and, you know, I know it's a long ways out, but you guys have really long visibility and good runway, you know, on your revenue potential. You disclosed that around 3% of your 2023 revenue is tied to banks that are recently closed or are being acquired. Not a big number, but still, you know, it's meaningful nevertheless. We understand nCino is providing some compelling functionality to these banks, which, you know, and obviously they're idiosyncratic in their nature. Just wondering how we should think about the potential impact on 2025 revenue from these banks that are either closed or acquired.

You know, how long do you expect it to continue to generate revenue from them versus when would you expect that to be shut down, et cetera?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. you know, M&A and banking has been taking place for-

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... a couple of decades, right? Particularly here in the States. We've actually, I think, as we look back over time, been a beneficiary of M&A.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We've got great examples with BB&T and SunTrust coming together. We were at SunTrust. We ended up being able to expand. First Horizon and IBERIABANK, the same thing. When there's an M&A transaction, and I appreciate it wasn't just a straight line to get to.

Speaker 3

Right, right, right. Yeah.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Versus-

Speaker 3

At least not as straight as everybody would have liked.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

That's right. Ultimately, you know, we have our playbook, and we go and execute that playbook, and I think we have confidence in the value that we bring, not only to the institutions that we were serving and some of the uniqueness of things that we did for them, but ultimately seeing an opportunity in the expanded, combined financial institutions. As we look here today, we're going to execute on that playbook. We've not given any indication that we have an expectation of any impact to this year's revenue.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We haven't talked, beyond this year, but ultimately, you know, those customers have multiyear contracts. Again, we see these things as opportunities, and we'll focus on executing successfully that playbook to expand.

Speaker 3

When you talk about like, ultimately where these banks end up and, you know, their acquirers, if you will, when do you have an opportunity to engage with them and see if that could be a new source of customer and revenue expansion for you? Like, when would that start to take place? Like, what does that sales cycle look like versus just like a from beginning or from, you know, from scratch type sales cycle?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. Again, I think it would be an accelerated one. Again, there's a difference. Are you just maintaining what you've got, right, as part of a new, institution, or is there an opportunity to expand? First and foremost, we want to take care of our customer-

Speaker 3

Right, right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

particularly some who've been through, you know, some challenging.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... some challenging times over the last couple of months. That's first and foremost. I think from there, again, you know, making sure everything's done in a regulatory compliant manner with when you can speak, et cetera, you know, we look for opportunities. You can also assume that the banks, the acquiring banks we've been in or been having discussions with, are certainly, you know, making sure we're knocking on their door a sufficient number of times so that we understand what some of their pain points may be or some of the opportunities may be there. We're able to bring that together with the acquisition, and again, look for opportunities to not only maintain but to expand.

Speaker 3

Got it. Got it. Let's talk about ACV uplift. Historically, IQ module adoption tends to result in about a 20% uplift to ACV if you're an existing commercial customer. At least that's what you've talked about.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yep.

Speaker 3

Given the potential for differences in seat count and pricing between commercial and retail, I'd be curious to hear you talk about if you've seen similar math on ACV uplift and if an existing commercial customer adopts retail. Just help us understand what that dynamic and interplay may look like.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. Again, we started as a commercial lending company.

I think some people still view us that way.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We've actually evolved quite a bit from that with nIQ, which I'll circle back onto this question, which is now about 5% of our, of our revenues, SimpleNexus, which is about 15%, and then internationally, which I mentioned, was 17%. Again, there's a meaningful piece of that that is not commercial. I'll point you to in Q1, we had a great property lending win.

Speaker 3

Yep

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... with a institution in the United Kingdom. As we think about the uplift from nIQ... we have currently three products: Portfolio Analytics, which has historically been focused on credit unions. That came from the Visible Equity acquisition we did in the summer of 2019. We've got Automated Spreading, and we've got Commercial Pricing and Profitability, which is a newer one, and that really is the 20% uplift that you were referencing.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

As we expand into retail, I think one of the things that we're really excited about is retail. It took us a little while to get to this excitement level. We've been excited, but ultimately, from a product standpoint, we feel like the product is mature, where, again, we can land with commercial, we can land with small business, we can land with retail. We actually are over 80 retail lending logos-

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Which was a nice statistic that we were able to communicate. While we've been doing that, we've been building out the infrastructure for our nIQ offering, which is our Data Analytics and AI. We started that about 4 years ago. What you'll see, really as a long answer to your question, is in furtherance of the retail product, right, additional nIQ products coming out, whether it be Early Warning, whether it be probability of default, probability of paying early, that we think will help drive the retail side of things, and again, not only help accelerate sales there, but be a nice uplift on top of our normal seed pricing.

Speaker 3

Can you talk a little bit about those incremental functionality and modules, and, like, how important are they going to be to winning additional customers? What's the revenue uplift potential, and what are the key inputs into those modules that, you know, that you have to build out, whether it be data or your own analytic capabilities, et cetera, and what that timeframe looks like?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. It's one of the things we're really excited about. I mean, we have spent a lot of time, kind of accumulating data. If you think about our customer base, we have over 1,000 credit unions.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

data from them. You know, from a commercial lending perspective, I think everyone appreciates the book of business that we have. With SimpleNexus now, from a mortgage perspective, right, we're touching a meaningful number of loan originations in this country. We talk about having five of the top seven banks in Canada, three of the top five in New Zealand, five of the top nine in UKI, et cetera. We've been working on infrastructure to put all of that together so that it can be leveraged and harvested. What I think is unique, again, about nCino is we have this single platform, right?

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We've got the ability to offer, you know, the lending and account opening and onboarding services across the financial institution. We, we really own the real estate, right? The bank's employees go in there, and they open their nCino screen every day. With all of this data that we have and the ability to leverage it, we're then able to inject intelligence, right, across the workflow when it's needed, to help facilitate greater decision-making.

Speaker 3

Right

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

you know, in real time.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

I think that's really unique. Again, I think over the coming quarters and certainly years, I think that's gonna be an exciting part of the nCino story as that data, you know, gets utilized. I think, you know, in today's environment, there's obviously a ton of hype around AI.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

I don't see financial institutions running out tomorrow and, you know, being, you know, leaders, right?

Speaker 3

Right. Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

In AI, just as they're concerned about PII and confidential information. What I think this AI hype talk does is it really reinforces the messaging that we've been giving around how data, and AI and ML can be used to help banks become more efficient and make better decisions. That's what we're really excited on, working on.

Speaker 3

Got it. Got it. No, it does sound exciting. Let's turn to the mortgage business and SimpleNexus. You know, IMB churn came in slightly faster than we had anticipated, but it was still constructive to hear that SimpleNexus, you feel like, is on track to generate positive operating and free cash flow by the end of the fiscal year. Can you help us understand how the competitive backdrop has evolved with SimpleNexus since you acquired the asset? You know, are you taking share from competitors, or is it hard to determine just because of the state of the mortgage market? Just kind of give us a state of the union for SimpleNexus right now.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. We've been extremely pleased with Simple Nexus. Obviously, a tumultuous year in the mortgage market.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

as interest rates went up, you know, much faster than people thought and much quicker than people thought. Despite that, SimpleNexus continued to grow throughout last year, and in Q1, we noted that it was in line with nCino's overall growth, so north of 20%, you know, notwithstanding the churn. The churn has really been focused around the IMB market. You know, some IMBs just folding up shop or.

Speaker 3

Yeah

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... downsizing. The churn that we referenced on the call was churn we expected.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

It just happened a little bit sooner than we expected.

Speaker 3

Right. Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

I think the good news from that is that ultimately, that gets behind us. We said by the end of the second quarter, we'll be kind of halfway through or more than halfway through the churn that we expect out of that, and we do see things settling down somewhat. From that perspective, again, I think that positions us very, very well. As it relates to the business and the competitive landscape, notwithstanding the mortgage turmoil and notwithstanding the fact that we were integrating that business last year, we were able to do 16 cross-sales into the nCino customer base, which was something we were really excited about when we did the deal, and then 19 competitive takeaways.

To your point about the competition, you know, one of the things that we thought really was unique about Simple Nexus was their business model. Very much seat-based, recurring revenue, consistent with nCino's. We saw a lot of the competitors out there that had transaction-based business models, and when transaction volumes fell off a cliff, you know, it really undermined their business model. I think ultimately, Simple Nexus strategically is positioned as pleased as we were when we did the acquisition, is positioned strategically better today than even then, because I think they are viewed as, you know, the right choice, the best choice. The safest choice. As we expand more aggressively into banks and credit unions, I think that's going to resonate.

To that point, we've seen 35% year-over-year increase in average deal size for them. I think that's in large part, taking them into the nCino customer base.

Speaker 3

Can I ask you just on the churn, and the IMB segment of customers. You mentioned that came in slightly faster than you anticipated, but what are the things that you're looking at to determine what the overall net or total level of churn is likely to be before we see stabilization and then ultimately and hopefully, improvement in that market?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. Well, fortunately, we have incredible visibility into the volumes.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

activity, and so that is a big driver in terms of what we see. Then we also spend a lot of time with our customers.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Right? We can see who's using what, but more importantly, talking to them, understanding what's going on. We really try to put our arms around them, particularly, you know, some who really want to work through this and come out the other side. We want to be there to support them. I think when the dust or as the dust is settling, I think you end up with a smaller number of larger, better capitalized IMBs.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

I think that's a nice base to kind of build back from on the IMB side of the business, while again, in parallel, we're aggressively going after the bank and credit union market.

Speaker 3

Got it. Got it. You alluded to it, there is... Can you speak to the impact of SimpleNexus, the integration, and its integration on sales cycle in the retail lending space more generally? I'd love to hear how you can get leverage there. 'Cause if we look at the structure of mortgage operations, they often roll up into the broader retail franchise. Just curious if that integration has created higher velocity of conversations around retail lending, or what needs to happen for that to really be a point of leverage.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah, it absolutely has. Again, as we were thinking strategically, we kind of have viewed M&A as, you know, puzzle pieces.

Speaker 3

Right. Right, right

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

what piece of the puzzle were we missing, particularly as we saw an opportunity in retail and as our own retail lending, product matured. It has accelerated discussions. Again, I think being a trusted vendor for our financial institutions has elevated those discussions, frankly, quicker than we thought that they would. Again, I think the competitive landscape and some of the challenges there has helped. The other thing that we are doing with SimpleNexus, and this was part of the acquisition thesis, is we're taking their mobile-first, best-in-class, technology, and we're actually bringing that across, nCino's, you know, consumer lending-

Speaker 3

Right. Right, right

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

touchpoint. We think that will be helpful in terms of a further reason or accelerating the reason why you'd want to buy our retail lending solutions, because, you know, we're gonna have this front-end technology that we think is pretty unique, and then again, leveraging the nCino middle and back office expertise that we've been able to demonstrate over the years.

Speaker 3

Got it. Got it. Let's talk about international. As we look across the history of financial software, generally, providers typically haven't been successful internationally, as penetrating different regions, a lot of times creates significant complexity with local regulations and deployments. Can you help to, you know, deconstruct what the business has done at nCino to enable it to win internationally?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. you know, first off, I think just the value proposition we have, I think, travels. Right?

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

I think the need for financial institutions to modernize, particularly their middle and back office, where they've not spent much money. A lot of money has been spent in payments, for example.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Not in that middle and back office. I think that story exists on a global basis, and so I think that's part of it. Secondly, I think we're fortunate that we've got a team that has had a lot of international experience.

Speaker 3

Okay

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

and appreciates the fact that, you know, each country is different, right? Just because you may have a reference in France, doesn't mean it's gonna help you in Germany. There's different regulations in, in both countries, and I think that's part of it. I think the other thing is, our relationship with Salesforce and the Salesforce platform that we picked to build on. Again, they've got a nice presence, particularly in certain countries, Japan being a great example.

Speaker 3

Okay

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... where, you know, Salesforce has been very nicely adopted, and it makes sense for us to follow in, right, as an accelerator to what we're doing. I think it's, you know, solving a problem that needs to be solved. I think having success, particularly with large financial institutions here in the States, helps. I think it also just you start and view each country uniquely. That first customer is always the hard one. Usually, it takes more time than you want to sign it. When you do sign it, usually the other, competitors wait and see kind of, are you gonna be successful?

Speaker 3

Right. Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Once they see you getting traction, and see the impact, the positive impact that you can have, then we see them follow suit, and we've been able to demonstrate that again in Canada, Japan, New Zealand, you know, the UKI, et cetera. We feel like we've got this playbook, and we just execute it on a country-by-country basis.

Speaker 3

Got it. Got it. Got it. You know, speaking of international and the potential for the, you know, classic and highly desirable land and expand, it seems like a large majority of your international wins are initially for one line of business. Aside from the net new and international opportunity, you know, what about that expansion within existing customers? Like, what is different about lending, expanding, if anything, with international customers versus what you normally would see in the US?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah, I think it really is more around bank size.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

The larger bank you go to, they generally are still more siloed.

Speaker 3

Right

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

... with their different business lines. Again, there being a lot of larger financial institutions outside of the US, you see that land, where you'll land in a particular business segment and then want to expand from there. As you go down a little bit down market, I think you'll see folks who are willing to take everything. We announced in Q4 Johnson Financial, where they bought the entire platform. We're seeing a little bit larger lands, particularly as our retail solutions matured, for folks saying, "I'm all in." you know, I'm all in up front. I'm making this commitment-.

Speaker 3

Right. Right, right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

believing in the platform.

Speaker 3

Right. Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

The larger institution you go, you still deal with a little bit more of a siloed approach, which is fine. We'll start one place. We'll demonstrate our success. Wells Fargo is a perfect example. We started with commercial, and then quickly, within a year, we expanded into small business.

Speaker 3

Got it. You know, I've been dominating the conversation. If anybody has any follow-up questions, please feel free to raise your hand. I've got one here, Michael.

Speaker 2

Maybe just on SimpleNexus specifically, I think, the growth at close to corporate average is obviously really impressive, just given all the chaos that we've seen in the mortgage space. More specifically, I think, as you sort of see stabilization and normalization there, what's your sense, just given the share gains that you guys presumably are capturing in this environment, about how much that asset can actually inflect in a more normal mortgage market?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, again, we see, again, more opportunity today than we would have seen a year and a half ago, when we were so excited about that opportunity, we, you know, we did the deal. Particularly in the bank and credit union market. Again, I think they've got great presence in the IMB space. Again, I'd like to think that's settling down. Ultimately, where we see a tremendous amount of opportunity is with banks and credit unions, expanding our single platform story, being part of it. Again, just with the activity that we see, the opportunities we see in the pipeline, I think that also comes back to some of the optimism that we have as we look into the back half of the year. You know, those discussions don't happen overnight.

As we know, they're generally six to 12-plus-month sales cycles. As you come up from a timing standpoint, you know, you can see as we get into the back half of the year, where some of that timing may be coming together. That's something that I think we see a lot of opportunity with.

Speaker 3

I want to turn now to... We've gotten to talk a lot about sales and strategy and product, all of which you have some connection to, but it's not your direct responsibility. Let's talk about financials and that kind of thing. You know, look, recent industry dynamics are, you know, creating some of the sales cycle challenges we talked about, and you kind of address why you think those will start to improve later this year. Nevertheless, the magnitude of profitability expansion this year has been really robust, with adjusted EBIT margins expanding from basically negative half a percent, or call it break even close to it, to about 10.5% within a single fiscal year.

All that being said, you've continued to stress that ideologically, you remain more focused on driving growth than profitability, or at least driving growth is more important. To the extent that revenue growth rebounds in 25 and 26, how should investors think about the impact on margin expansion? Like, you know, what is the balance that you're trying to pursue on growth versus margins, and what's the right framework we should be using?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah, we do view ourselves as a growth company and always want to err on the side of growth while being realistic about the market.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Right. and but ultimately, we kind of really are focusing ourselves on a Rule of framework, and so we put a stake in the ground and said this year would be 30. what you should expect to see is next year, it'd be greater than that, and the year after greater, et cetera, as we track towards Rule of 40 and beyond. again, you know, when in doubt, we'll err on the side of growth because we do see, you know, a massive market opportunity. We do think it's still very, very early, and we think we're uniquely positioned to capitalize on it.

Speaker 3

When we're looking at that Rule of, you know, 30 and eventually Rule of 40, and kind of that focus on growth, where are kind of the key decision points that you need to make in terms of, like, investing for that growth? You mentioned your sales forces, expanding the sales force, expanding the breadth of products. Is it, you know, maybe even just as simple as continuing to add additional products and features via R&D? Like, where are you looking to pull levers?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. Look, I think we've got a great, we've made a lot of investments from a global expansion perspective.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

I think we feel good about the footprint we have. I think from a product standpoint, we've also made a lot of investment in our product portfolio.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We've seen a lot of our products mature. Again, I think there's, quite a bit of upside as we think about nIQ and think about leveraging data. Going back to our customers, which is, you know, one of our biggest assets is our customer base. Going back to them with more and more product, I think, also remains, you know, remains an exciting opportunity. So I think it really comes down to just continuing to execute. There'll be choppy waters from time to time. You need to ride them. Strategically, we are always challenging ourselves, saying: Should we be doing something different, right? I think strategically, we feel very comfortable about where we are. We feel comfortable about the investments that we've made.

I think one thing internationally that we're focusing on a little bit more as we've entered this year is outside of our geographic footprint.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

working with our system integrator partners like Accenture, KPM, PwC, Deloitte, on going after targeted accounts in countries we're not in.

Speaker 3

Right.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

A country like Thailand, which we don't have a physical presence in, they, you know, small number of very large banks that spend money on technology, right? Making sure we go directly towards them, we think is another avenue for growth. Yeah, I think it just comes down to executing.

Speaker 3

On that international component, where is international from a profitability standpoint today, and where could it be relative to the domestic business? Is, you know, is international have the potential to be better than domestic margins, or what would ultimately determine the profitability of the international push?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

I think overall, just from a SAM standpoint, international is a bigger SAM for us than domestic, just for perspective. As we talk about our pipeline right now, currently, it leans a little bit more towards international. Again, massive opportunity. From a margin standpoint, we do expect better margins. I think one of the things that has impacted margins, is in the community banking space, we have the ability to resell Salesforce's CRM solution.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

When we do, we pay them a bigger slice of the pie, which ends up being, I think, a win-win for both sides. Ultimately, particularly since we started there, right, as we've expanded internationally, and we don't have that same ability to resell. I think that improves margins, as well as some of the nIQ stuff, which is really taken up well outside of the US, I think that margin profile looks good. I think if you talk about the overall maturity of it, we really have, I'll call it, more mature infrastructure in the UK and in Canada and in Australia. Then we have some startups. If we think about the continent, South Africa, which we've recently expanded into.

That's kind of how we view it, and we'll monitor those startups and make sure we feel like the investments make sense. We're very selective about where we go, and do it with a lot of thought before we go ahead and try to sign up a customer.

Speaker 3

Last question here to wrap up is that, you know, as you break into profitability and continue to expand that, and at the same time have rapid revenue growth, the expectation, clearly, is that your cash flow generation will improve, et cetera. How should we think about allocation of capital? Where's the right places? Is it continuing to look for acquisitions, increased investment? Just like, how are you thinking about that?

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Yeah. For any kind of initiative, we'll always go through a build, partner, buy scenario.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Based on that, we'll decide what makes sense. SimpleNexus is a great example where we said: We're not gonna build it. It's gonna take too long.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We actually started those discussions and partnership discussions, and we ended up acquiring the company.

Speaker 3

Interesting.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

We'll continue to go through that. Particularly in a market like this, we do think there'll be opportunities to leverage the capital that we have. You know, we've been vocal about continuing to look for ways to accelerate our nIQ initiative, and we'll see if there's opportunities there as well. But ultimately, very focused, again, build, partner, buy, and that's really how we think about different initiatives as we address them.

Speaker 3

Well, Greg, thank you very much. Appreciate you coming to visit with us, talk about nCino. Clearly, a lot of opportunity, and as we said throughout the conversation, it's interesting to see a business like yours exploiting and taking advantage of international, because that's really unique, at least in the financial software space. Appreciate you being here.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Thanks for your time. We very much enjoyed it. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Greg.

Greg Orenstein
CFO, nCino

Appreciate it.

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