Clearwater Analytics Holdings Inc

NYSE:CWAN

Earnings Call Analysis

Company Forecasts Strong Q4 Revenue and EBITDA

The company anticipates a robust fourth quarter in 2023 with revenue expectations of $98.5 million and an adjusted EBITDA of $28 million, reflecting a solid EBITDA margin of around 28%. Furthermore, for the full year of 2023, revenue guidance has been raised to $367.6 million, which signifies a notable year-over-year increase of approximately 21%. The full year EBITDA forecast has also been uplifted by $4 million since the previous quarter, now aiming for $104 million, aligning with a full year EBITDA margin of 28%.

Stable Client Base and Upgraded EBITDA Goals Showcase Clearwater Analytics' Strength

Clearwater Analytics showcased a strong third quarter in 2023 with high client retention and increased profitability. Revenue reacceleration was evident with a 23.7% year-over-year rise to $94.7 million, primarily driven by significant client wins, further expansion within existing clients, and improved operational efficiency. The company continues to exhibit a robust and stable client base, maintaining a 98% gross retention rate for 18 of the past 19 quarters. In terms of profitability, Clearwater Analytics reported an Adjusted EBITDA of $28.6 million, reflecting a notable 30.2% EBITDA margin in Q3 – a substantial 550 basis points improvement over the prior year's same quarter. This outperformance led to a revised upward EBITDA margin goal to approximately 30% for 2024, showcasing the company's confidence in maintaining these heightened levels of profitability. Sandeep Sahai, the CEO, attributed this success to disciplined execution, client success-orientation, and sustained product innovation.

Fourth Quarter Outlook and Future Guidance Hold Positive Prospects

For the fourth quarter of 2023, Clearwater Analytics projects revenues to hit $98.5 million with adjusted EBITDA expected to be $28 million. This projection aligns with an anticipated 28% EBITDA margin and is in congruence with the financial strategy that underpins growing bottom-line results. Looking ahead at the full 2023 fiscal year, the company's 2023 guidance suggests a promising increase in full-year EBITDA margins to about 28%, reinforcing the overall health and growth trajectory of the company.

Client Success and Product Innovation: Pillars of Clearwater's Market Position

Sandeep Sahai emphasized the significance of client-focused execution and innovative offerings as critical pillars sustaining Clearwater's market position. Notably, he applauded the company's ability to onboard clients rapidly, with 90% now being onboarded within five months, a metric which speaks volumes about the efficiency of the company's platform and the dedication of the team. Clearwater's product suite, including Clearwater LPx, MLx, Prism, and JUMP, continue to align with the evolving needs of asset management industry and client growth strategies. Such innovation and adaptability are crucial for maintaining their competitive edge and expanding the company's net revenue retention, which stands at a healthy 108% and is aspirationally targeted to exceed 115% through new upselling opportunities.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Thank you for joining, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for standing by, and welcome to the Clearwater Analytics Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]And I would now like to welcome Jean Park, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today's conference.

[Joon Park, executive]

Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to Clearwater Analytics Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. Joining me on the call today are Sandeep Sahai, Chief Executive Officer; and Jim Cox, Chief Financial Officer. After their remarks, we will open the call to a question-and-answer session.I would like to remind all participants that during this conference call any forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Expressions of future goals, intentions and expectations, including in relation to business outlook, future financial and product performance and similar items, including, without limitation, expressions using the terminology may, will, can, expect and believe, and expressions which reflect something other than historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking statements.Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our filings with the SEC. Actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events that may arise after this conference call, except as required by law. For more information, please refer to the cautionary statement included in our earnings press release.Lastly, all metrics discussed on this call are presented on a non-GAAP or adjusted basis and include the results of JUMP Technology since the acquisition on November 30, 2022, unless otherwise noted. A reconciliation to GAAP results can be found in the earnings press release that we have posted to our Investor Relations website.With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Sandeep Sahai.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

Thanks, Joon, and thank you all for joining us. The very strong numbers in Q3 were the result of disciplined execution from our operations and onboarding team, strong and sustained product innovation from our engineering and product teams and, finally, our ability to focus on science success with a genuine desire to partner for the long term.Normally, I would provide a business summary in this opening section of the call. But given the financial outperformance in Q3, I've our Chief Financial Officer, Jim Cox, to discuss the financials first.

[James Cox, executive]

Thanks, Sandeep, and thank you all for joining us. Sandeep is right, we had another strong quarter on the heels of Q2's solid results and our impactful first Investor Day in September. I'm happy to report strong results for Q3, where we beat guidance on top and bottom line once again.Revenue continued to reaccelerate, but the real highlight is our greater-than-30% EBITDA margin for Q3. At our Investor Day, we announced our intent to expand EBITDA margins by 200 basis points in 2024, to approximately 29%. After our strong Q3 results, our current 2023 guidance implies full year EBITDA margins increasing to approximately 28%. Today, we intend to expand EBITDA margins by 200 basis points in 2024. So we expect our 2024 EBITDA margins will be approximately 30%. In effect, we believe these higher profitability levels will persist in the business, going forward.Turning to revenue in the quarter. In Q3 2023, we delivered $94.7 million in revenue, which translates to 23.7% year-over-year revenue growth, driven by marquee client wins displacing our legacy competitors, continued expansion at our existing clients and continued increase in efficiency of onboarding new clients by our operations team.In addition, clients continue to remain with us, with a strong and consistent 98% gross retention. We've achieved this 98% gross retention for 18 out of the last 19 prior quarters.Our net revenue retention rate continued to remain healthy at 108%, as of September 30, 2023, which is higher than the prior year's 103%. We continue to aspire to expand NRR to 115%, or beyond, through upsell of new products and modules that we are now offering our clients, like Clearwater LPx, MLx, Prism and our JUMP solutions. And we expect our improved GTM and additional products to help us meet our goals.As we saw during our recent Clearwater Connect, our clients are excited about our new offerings that we continue to develop to meet their dynamic needs in an ever-changing investment world.Now let's turn to profitability results. We are pleased to report that both our EBITDA margin and gross margin showed strong improvement in Q3. We reported $28.6 million in adjusted EBITDA and 30.2% EBITDA margin in the third quarter, which was 550 basis points higher than the third quarter of last year. Just like last quarter, the outperformance in our revenue flowed straight through to EBITDA, as we are starting to see real efficiency gains with the operations teams using our Gen AI technology.Yet another highlight of the quarter was our free cash flow, at $30.9 million. Free cash flow exceeded EBITDA in the quarter, as there were limited changes in working capital and increased interest income contributed to our cash flow.Put this all together, and we ended the quarter with $302.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments, our highest-ever balance. This level of cash on the balance sheet and the free cash flow generation of this business provides us with significant strategic optionality in a number of areas.Overall, the third quarter was exceptionally strong, continuing our positive momentum.We could not deliver these results without the great work of our over 1,700 employees who are tirelessly focused on delivering for our clients. And certainly, we could not achieve these results without partnering with our terrific clients.With that, I'll turn it over to Sandeep to share the exceptional client details that generated these stellar results.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

Thank you, Jim. I want to just cover the 3 topics I laid out at the beginning of my remarks; namely, disciplined execution, client success and product innovation.Disciplined execution and a focus on client success are very important to our business. At the highest level, we are excited to be executing ahead of the models we presented on Investor Day, and these results were delivered before the R&D cost starts to normalize. The entire Clearwater team continues to be relentless in the urgency and precision with which it executes.The commercial model adjustment of last year, the highest-ever NPS in the company's history this past quarter and the sharp improvement in the time taken to onboard clients are examples of our ability to execute. It's easy for us to say that 90% of the onboarding now happens within 5 months, but that is a truly extraordinary achievement. The reality is that systems like these can take several years to implement, and the fact that we get customers on our platform live within 5 months is a direct consequence of our single-instance, multi-tenant platform, our single security [indiscernible] and the relentless focus of our onboarding team.Which leads me to product innovation. The needs of the industries we serve continue to change and will continue to change in the future, but it's our ability to adjust, execute and innovate that allows us to deliver these results.The needs of the asset management industry continue to evolve, and they now face relentless cost and growth pressures. Recognizing this change, we started to invest in Prism, and our current solution makes us a partner for growth instead of a partner who could just replace their accounting platform. In many deals in recent quarters, we are now helping our asset management clients deliver a better solution to their clients, thereby helping them increase AUM flows. We have become a partner for growth.Likewise, the asset owner industry also evolved their investing strategy and increased their allocations to alternative assets. And while we already process alternative assets very well, 2 years back we started to invest with the goal of becoming best in class when it comes to reporting on constituent elements within an LP: [indiscernible], compliance and reporting requirements. We now have Clearwater LPx, LPx Clarity and MLx. These products play a significant role in our ability to continue to win and differentiate our solutions. We are very proud of our ability to win 80% of the time we write a proposal, but we maintain that win rate by continuously listening to our clients and prospects.We believe that we have a truly disruptive platform, but we will continue to innovate to ensure that we broaden our competitive moat. How do you do this? We evaluate product ideas and categorize them into 1 of 3 areas. First, back to base; products that can help our current clients get better value or help us to solve additional pain points. Second, adjacencies; products that can help us provide a full investment life cycle [indiscernible] investment management, instead of just investment accounting. Third, disruptors; leveraging the power of the single-instance platform. These are products that help us leverage the power of the single security master and have the potential to disrupt the industry.We then weigh the investment against booking potential both over the next 12 months and in the long term. We take a portfolio approach that includes hitting singles and doubles, while also reserving some investments for potential home runs.One key tenet of our innovation process that is common to all our ideas is partnering with actual clients every step of the way. We solicit client inputs directly through our customer advisory boards and through our annual user conference, Clearwater Connect. [ This Clearwater ] Connect, in September, we hosted over 500 clients and prospects from across the globe to discuss our innovation road map, take their feedback and conduct joint design sessions. We held over 160 client meetings. We actively sought inputs to our road map and received feedback from them on our upcoming initiatives. Most importantly, we collaborated with design partners to ensure that our products are immediately beneficial to them.Let me try and bring these trends to life with actual 7-figure client wins this quarter. I'll start with a leading insurance company that we won in Q3. This was a significant win because they had outsourced their entire investment accounting function to a competitor. But when they saw an on-site demo of the Clearwater platform, they realized that it was possible to get a comprehensive daily [indiscernible] of their global portfolio, including public and private assets, which in turn would enable their decision makers to make better and more informed decisions. That demo led to an accelerated review of their accounting book of record solution. [indiscernible] selected Clearwater in record time.Another large win was with a leading life insurance and annuity company that administers nearly $100 billion in assets under management. They selected a competitor over 3 years back, and they have yet to go live. Meanwhile, they bought another [indiscernible] of assets, but given the challenges the parent company was facing, this subsidiary chose Clearwater. Clearwater was able to swiftly [indiscernible] the subsidiary assets, and they went live on our platform in relatively short order.Looking at that experience, [indiscernible] to report that the parent company came to the conclusion that the prior system they selected was unable to scale and operate under pressure and opted to consolidate all their assets onto Clearwater's platform. Today, Clearwater is their strong investment accounting solution, and we once again proved the power of our platform.In Q3, we also signed an asset manager who had previously decided to migrate to the cloud version of a competitor's offering. As they attempted to move from an on-prem to the cloud version with this vendor, [indiscernible], from inaccurate data and segregated [indiscernible] for asset classes to reporting limitations and the overall inexperience of the provider. They found themselves consistently late on monthly close, unable to provide users with a view into the daily holdings across all assets, all while their fees crept up.Clearwater took a different approach. We started by collaborating. We conducted a number of in-person sessions, outlining every asset class, illustrating the efficiency Clearwater would be able to deliver [indiscernible] users across the spectrum, leading to complete wholesale alignment and trust.Finally, they talked to a number of our clients. And then, even though they had several years remaining on their contract with their previous vendor, they signed with us this past quarter.Another client is a North American full-service life insurance company. They recently went through an acquisition, essentially doubling their AUM. At a recent meeting with the Chief Investment Officer, we learned of their plans to diversify into adjacent geographies and markets and the challenges that would pose from an infrastructure point of view. We demonstrated the Clearwater platform and its ability to report comprehensively and seamlessly on assets around the world. Not only that, but we could also generate financial reports in local GAAP and address local regulatory [indiscernible]. And that convinced them to sign a 7-figure deal.Of course, we also signed a number of 6-figure deals with medium-sized businesses. Let me start with an asset management firm with a variety of institutional customers. Before signing with Clearwater, this business had grown tired of continuous Band-Aid solutions. They turned to Clearwater for a comprehensive portfolio for front-, middle- and back-office reporting, relying on the depth and breadth of Clearwater, Clearwater JUMP, LTx and Prism. Using Clearwater JUMP, this client is implementing a new OMS and PMS, while Clearwater LPx Clarity provides the front office with the transparency needed to understand risk and exposure of their limited partnership investments when making portfolio decisions.Finally, they use Clearwater Prism, which allows users to build and edit reports and client statements and define custom [indiscernible] workflows to meet their clients' audit, attribution and ESG reporting needs.The next client is a prominent insurance company in Asia. Their aggressive growth rate put significant strain on their [indiscernible], systems and processes, particularly their investment operations team. They were introduced to Clearwater by one of our existing clients in the region, once again demonstrating that our happy customers are our best sales channel. This reference led to an accelerated review, using a series of workshops. This hands-on experience with our solutions led to mutual success and reinforces the belief that Clearwater is a disruptive, best-in-class solution.You've heard us talk about how we support REITs. And during the third quarter, we added a significant REIT to our client base. This client chose Clearwater to replace their previous solution.We also signed a publicly held wellness brand to resolve the inconsistencies with investment data and more.And finally, we signed several new clients, leveraging our partnership with Morgan Money, a strategic partnership we announced with JPMorgan in May of this year. The joint solution makes it easier for financial professionals to have a global connected view of their investment portfolios and that powers them to make real-time investment decisions by working on the Clearwater and Morgan Money platform in tandem.And while all of these client wins are very exciting, we are equally excited about the recent progress we've made on 2 fronts. Number one, Gen AI. The response to the demonstrations and vision we provided our clients and prospects at Clearwater Connect were very encouraging. The pilots we have done with our internal operations team continues to build confidence about the impact of this technology on the efficiency of operations team and, therefore, to gross margin; and to the productivity of our engineering team and, therefore, to the cost of innovation.Second, building products that leverage the power of a single-security [indiscernible] multi-channel platform. Again, the visionary demo that we showed a small group of clients under NDA was very encouraging and has led us to doubling down on that [indiscernible] investment.As a summary, it continues to delight our customers. We have an exciting road map, with client design partners guiding our growth. And we are capitalizing on the latest technologies to improve our internal operations and deliver on [indiscernible] and growth opportunities for our clients. All of this is evident in our strong Q3 results.With that, I'd like to turn it back to Jim to cover our guidance.

[James Cox, executive]

Thanks. For the fourth quarter of 2023, we expect revenue to be $98.5 million, and we expect adjusted EBITDA to be $28 million, or approximately 28% EBITDA margin.For the full year 2023, we have increased our revenue guidance to $367.6 million, which is an increase of $2.6 million from the midpoint of our prior guidance range and represents approximately 21% year-over-year growth.We've also increased our full year EBITDA guidance by $4 million from the prior quarter, to $104 million for the full year 2023. That guidance represents EBITDA margins of 28% for the full year, an expansion of over 150 basis points over the full year 2022.With that, I'll turn it over to Sandeep to provide some closing thoughts.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

Thanks, Jim. We have long said that we want to build a truly exceptional company. I'm so happy to report that we are executing ahead of the plan we laid out at our Investor Day. [indiscernible] with our clients to become better together and are incredibly excited about what lies ahead.With that, I will turn it over to the operator for a live question-and-answer session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question we have comes from Rishi Jaluria, of RBC.

[Rishi Jaluria, analyst]

I wanted to start by asking a little bit about Gen AI. Sandeep, when I was at Clearwater Connect, I definitely got a chance to see Clearwater GPT demoed. It seems really impressive. Maybe can you talk about early feedback coming out of the conference and how we should be thinking about the road map of future use cases over, let's call it, the next year based on that customer feedback and maybe monetization alongside that? Then I've got a quick follow-up for Jim.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

Rishi, thank you for the question here. Look, also thank you for coming over to Clearwater Connect. It was really good that you can talk to clients directly, which you're always just listening to us.So look, ChatGPT and Gen AI, in general, here. So firstly, we believe it is transformative and disruptive. I do think it can have significant and mostly positive impacts on our business. As you know, we launched Clearwater GPT and then, at Connect, we showed a number of demos.And if you get to the next level, what we have done is we have launched and funded 5 programs. 2 of these programs are revenue-generating. They are more about how do we increase revenue. One of them is Insights, which we demonstrated. And the other one was how can customers talk to the data and really interact with the data themselves without sort of coming to us to understand what's going on. We think both of these are potentially revenue-generating.2 of those programs are efficiency-related. So the first one is about improving reconciliation and data, and the second one is how do you improve onboarding and client servicing.And frankly, the fifth one is one -- we talk about an NDA because it's something we aren't ready to discuss quite yet. And the point, Rishi, is that this is nothing which is going to take us 6 months or a year. We have already started to see some impact of that, frankly, on our financials and on our operating capability.So I would say that, do we expect it to continue to improve meaningfully in 2024? Yes, we do. We think it will have an impact. How much impact? I think that's something we will have a better position to tell you when we provide guidance for next year.Jim, would you add anything to that?

[James Cox, executive]

No, thanks. Rishi, go ahead.

[Rishi Jaluria, analyst]

Maybe a quick follow-up for that, on that for Jim, related. And you're giving this preliminary outlook on EBITDA margins for next year. Really happy to see that, and nice to see you continuing to expand margins as you're investing. Alongside that, though, I'd have to imagine there is some impact on your P&L from the investments you're making in generative AI, the cost, as well as I'm sure there's going to be more focus on driving adoption in the near term before really focusing on monetization in a big way. Maybe can you walk us through what are you thinking about the impact of generative AI on margins for next year? And how much, I guess, room are you leaving yourself to invest in what is really a big market opportunity and not wanting to overdeliver on margins?

[James Cox, executive]

That's a great question. And the way you articulated it is exactly how Sandeep and all of us are thinking about it.So we have already started to see the benefits, to a small degree, of the Gen AI tools that our teams are using internally. And I think you can just see the expression of it partially in the gross margin expansion that you saw in Q3. That is not the entire reason for the gross margin expansion in Q3. It is only a very small subset of the client servicing team that is using those tools, but the results we're seeing from those are meaningful.And so I think that just gives us more confidence that that 80% gross margin target that we think about in the longer term is extremely attainable.However, we want to balance that gross margin kind of targeting with kind of that incredible client service and focus on clients that we have. And so we don't want to lean too quickly into that. We want to make sure that we're delivering to them.And so what I would say is, as we think about the 200-basis point expansion next year, which we talked about at Investor Day and we're reiterating here, even at our higher EBITDA numbers for 2023, there's very limited impact of Gen AI within those margin numbers.And I think that what we want to do is exactly what you said. We want to maintain the optionality -- we see a very clear path to delivering 200 basis points of margin expansion next year, while allowing us flexibility to attack the opportunities that we see ahead of us.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

In fact, let me just add to that, Rishi, just to be very, very clear. We are not optimizing for profitability. I think when we presented at Investor Day, the gross margin should grow simply because of Europe and Asia normalizing. And also, if you remember, R&D should come down, not because we want it to come down, but because that onetime conversion to the cloud and the investment for Europe have been completed. So really, we don't think that we are optimizing for profitability; it's just a consequence of the business we have.And if I can just, since you asked this great question, just to be a little bit more declarative, I do think we're investing in Gen AI. We have a significant and dedicated team which does just that. But we're already getting returns on it. Are we going to invest more? Yes. Are we going to be able to get results quicker? Yes. That is the power of Gen AI. It can deliver results in months and not in 2 years and 3 years.So yes, we will invest more in Gen AI, and we are investing more in Gen AI. But the efficiency we are getting is, frankly, there to see. So yes, that's how we think about it.

[Operator]

We now have Ella Smith, from JPMorgan.

[Eleanor Smith, analyst]

This is Ella Smith on for Alexei Gogolev from JPMorgan. So for my first question, I noticed that NRR dipped ever so slightly sequentially, from 109% to 108%. I was hoping you could speak to what happened there.

[James Cox, executive]

Sure, Ella. This is Jim. Happy to take that. If you all recall, back in Q1 when we were at 106%, I kind of said, hey, this is about where we're going to live, in the high kind of single digits. And I think that if you heard me say when we got to Q2, when we were at 109%, maybe I only said this, boy, it just rounded up to 109%, all things being equal. And so I think we're just in the margin there. We're living in that space of kind of where we thought we would live while we work to continue to build out the GTM function and the additional products and solutions and executing that to drive us towards that 115%.So we are continuing to work really hard to drive towards that aspirational 115% level. But this is not an easy task. It is a Herculean effort. And I don't think that -- I think we will work through all of 2024 to continue to push on that, but I don't think we will get there in 2024. But if I'm still talking about moving to NRR 115% in 2026, I think I will consider that a failure, frankly, on my part.So we're going to push hard. It's a multiyear effort. We're very committed to it, and we want to drive to it. These kind of quarter-to-quarter changes in the margin, I'm very comfortable with. All the initiatives are still pointing in that direction.

[Eleanor Smith, analyst]

That's very helpful. And for a follow-up, so listening to the Investor Day, which happened not too long ago, and this call, a huge emphasis is obviously on your product developments and new product launches. It makes me think that you would expect a strong majority of your future growth to come from ARR expansion per client, as opposed to the number of clients expanding. Would you agree with that? Or not necessarily?

[James Cox, executive]

I'll start and then you go. Sorry. I would say that we have -- so that is one path. So what is so great about adding NRR 115% to this level and all of the product development is that that is yet another path, of going back to the base to get that. But the truth is we have many, many different paths to drive 20-plus percent growth. We have geographic expansion. We have these new products, but they are also opening up adjacencies and additional market opportunities for new clients as well as our existing clients. And yes, we talk a lot about going back to base because it's a relatively new muscle for us, but it's just yet another one of those options. So if we have 5 or 6 different options to drive that growth, it just makes it a more durable, resilient and strong business.Sandeep, what would you add?

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

I think that's exactly right. I don't think you can sort of take those pieces and say, "Ah, so if this is going to get to 14 or 15, then new logos is going to go down." That's not the way we think about it. What we do think about is how do we put many irons in the fire, and some will work and some won't work. And some will be good in one quarter, then another will be good in another quarter.But we want to provide resiliency in our growth. And so like Jim laid out, there are 5 things. There's geography. The second one is markets and market adjacencies. The third one is these products, the new products we're developing. Fourth one is the commercial model we have made changes to, and that will help. And finally, at some point there's going to be an AUM tailwind. We have not had any AUM tailwind this year. Last year, obviously, hurt us. But at some point, the value of assets will start to grow. Is it going to be 2%, 3%? Yes. And that's what we would expect, but we obviously can't forecast that and we don't expect that -- we don't build it into our business model, except to note that, yes, that would be another level of growth we might expect in the outer years.So it's not about one versus the other. We want to work on all of these sort of simultaneously.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of James Faucette, of Morgan Stanley.

[Michael Infante, analyst]

It's Michael Infante on for James. Nice results here. I just wanted to ask on ARR growth versus revenue growth. It looks like ARR is growing 19.4% in the quarter, probably a touch lower on an organic basis, but you're seeing revenue growth that's close to 24%. I know you've spoken about the delta between ARR growth and revenue growth ultimately compressing in '24, but can you sort of unpack what's driving that delta right now?

[James Cox, executive]

Sure. I think that that's -- so I think that as you're onboarding clients, you can get some catch-up in revenue there that then plays through. So maybe just let me back up for a second. We are very rigorous and conservative in our approach for the revenue that we describe as recurring revenue. And so we have lots of new products, and we have lots of things within our clients which we believe will be recurring in nature, but we do not put them into ARR at that bucket, Michael. And so that's a little bit of the delta there.ARR continues to -- I agree with you. But in the long term, those 2 will trend together. But let's say that we choose to commercialize something in a nonrecurring way. At some point in the future, we would have a delta in that, going forward.So I think they're very close to each other. And so I think that that's -- when you start looking at last 12 months and those sorts of information, they're trending pretty consistently.

[Michael Infante, analyst]

Makes sense. And I wanted to follow up just on some of the strategic commentary you made. Obviously, record cash balance and pretty impressive free cash flow generation in the quarter. It seems like M&A is very much on the table. I guess, how are you thinking about the types of assets or geographies you would be targeting? I guess, the reason I ask is it seems like driving towards that 115% NRR is sort of a guidepost and M&A may not necessarily sort of aid in that goal, but I'm curious how you're thinking about both of those factors.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

So look, I think that there are 2 things here. One is we obviously have $302 million of cash, and that's significant because we never had that much cash on our balance sheet. But what's also useful is that we continue to generate cash on a quarterly basis.Now the first stab we took at it was buying JUMP last year. And frankly, we wanted it to play out a little bit. When you acquire something else, it takes a little while for the company, the first acquisition in its history, to sort of play out. And I think we are very happy with the result.And therefore, we will be aggressive on M&A, but it's not being done for a purpose. This is no real purpose. It's not like we have to hit a certain gross margin target or a certain EBITDA target or a certain revenue target. What we do care about, as we have said before, is, can it help us expand functionality? Can it help us bring in products we can take to our current clients and go sell to them? Or can we expand geographically? So I think it has got to be in service of one of those 3 things.And obviously, we want our bar to be high. These are really nice financials, the balance sheet is quite pristine. And so therefore, we want to be cautious, but we don't want to be defensive. And so if you haven't seen anything until now, it was because we did JUMP last year, we want to make sure we have the right muscle and the right systems to have them integrated in the right way. And then we will continue to act on this.So we are excited about it. We are excited about what that potential opportunity that opens for us.

[Operator]

We now have Michael Turrin, from Wells Fargo.

[David Unger, analyst]

It's David Unger for Michael Turrin tonight. Just one from me. [indiscernible], for sure. I know we've kind of touched upon this, but can you guys talk more broadly on the demand environment for the industry, just talking about the -- proving out the ROI in a more constrained budget environment? And guys, maybe going back to that beautiful slide you had on the Investor Day, the 4 bps of tech investment management spend TAM reference versus just [indiscernible] the 1 bps?

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

Sure. So I could just talk about that specifically. If you think about how we go from the 1 bps to the 3 bps or to the [indiscernible]. And you think about what is incorporated in that. And so we think of that as risk, as performance and middle office and really components that complete the investment life cycle instead of just investment accounting. And so when Jim was talking about investing in new products and ideas, it is about that. It's in service of expanding that 1 bps into the 4 bps.Now I just want to make sure you understand that we already do risk, we already do performance. We already do these things. But what we are building is [ displacement-quality ] software, where a stand-alone client will be able to buy risk from us directly just for that capability. So that's the difference.We have focused always on what's needed for investment accounting. And our aspiration, as we said at Investor Day, is to move towards the investment management process, the whole life cycle. So that's how we think about it.I don't know, Jim, if you'd add anything to that or not.We obviously have a whole section around back to base, which is about products we can take to our current client base. And that is obviously more important, if you will, because that helps us grow faster. And finally, disruptors. So nothing has changed in the last 7 weeks. We still believe that, hey, it's back to base; it's adjacencies, which is the 1 bps to 4 bps; and then, finally, it's the disruptive products we can come up with.

[James Cox, executive]

Sandeep, that's right on. The only thing I'd add -- I think you were also asking, hey, what's the overall demand environment like vis-a-vis what you're hearing from perhaps other software companies? And I would say we are in a replacement market. And what you heard from Sandeep in his prepared remarks was example after example after example of where we are meaningfully better and different. And there is pain out there, and it is a known market. And so I think that's why we see such resiliency in the demand that we see, is that pain is not getting any less. And the more examples we have of solving that pain, the more likely it is that more clients will recommend us to their friends, who will become our prospects, and we move forward from that.

[Operator]

We now have Peter Heckmann, of D.A. Davidson.

[Peter Heckmann, analyst]

I wanted to see if you could talk about some of the competitive response you might be seeing in the marketplace. I really appreciated some of the examples you gave of long implementation cycles, some sales in to out-migrations. But in terms of -- do you see some of those legacy competitors mounting a competitive response? If so, what is it? And do you think that that can be successful at all in helping them retain some of that business?

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

Peter, thank you and thanks for the question. This is -- I wish I had prompted you with this question. But look, Q3 was very exciting. I think when we spoke about a year back or 1.5 years back, there was a lot of conversation about competitors launching cloud versions of their product. And I think if you go back and listen to what we said, we said, yes, but that doesn't change the underlying technology or the inability of the various pieces and components of working together like our software does, right? And in Q3, we really got many several million-dollar deals to actually prove that point.And so the first one that we talked about was a cloud version of a product. Nearly 2 years they've been implementing it. Haven't had success. And you talk to the clients, and they are saying, "Hey, we have to talk to 5 different groups." Yes, because there are 5 different products behind it. And here what is one integrated product [indiscernible]. And we won another one where there was a promise of a product 2 years back.So look, we feel really good about it. We feel a little bit validated in what we have been saying. And obviously, all of you understand technology well. It's not quite that easy. You can't just take pieces of a technology and re-architect all of them and make them all work with each other. Clearwater, on the other hand, our platform was built ground-up to work end-to-end seamlessly.So look, we feel like our competitive position, if anything, is a little bit stronger. And I do think as we get more proof points it becomes easier for us to go to our prospects and say, "Don't talk to us. Why don't you go talk to these 5 clients and see what they have to say?"So look, we feel really good about where we are right now. But as I'm sure you heard from us right now, we're in our [indiscernible] state. It's not like we are saying we're going to stop innovating, we're going to stop investing in R&D. None of that. We expect to continue to innovate and continue to deepen our competitive moat.Jim, would you add anything to that?

[James Cox, executive]

No.

[Peter Heckmann, analyst]

That's great to hear. That's very helpful. And just in terms of JUMP, just following up on there, I guess, versus your expectations when you announced the deal, I guess how -- and I know you've announced several deals in several different countries. But generally, how would you characterize the response from either current customers or non-JUMP, non-Clearwater customers in other markets in terms of the feature functionality of the software? I guess, today, are you thinking you need a little bit more investment? Or perhaps there's a little bit more feature functionality than you thought.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

So I can – let me give you the report card on the JUMP integration. So look, the first was JUMP's ability to compete in the French market against largest players. So there are a lot of large players who would not buy from JUMP because they were a much, much smaller company. So that's clear net positive. There is no confusion there, we are seeing more momentum in the French market.The second one was ability to sell front-to-back in North America. We've seen several early wins, but I do think we need to invest more in the GTM in the coming year to take those proof points and then take it across the market. So is that all proven out? Does that...? No? Are the earlier wins exactly the kind of wins we wanted to get? Yes. And so I feel good about it, but I would say we have to invest dollars there on GTM next year to take it to a much broader market here in North America and take it aggressively.The third thing was ability to sell JUMP front office along with the Clearwater platform. And so that is very promising. So they announced a deal in the last quarter, and a number of customers want that optionality from us. And since we're doing accounting already, why shouldn't we do the front office and the middle office? So we feel good about it. Is there more work there? Yes, there is. As you get to the U.S. and you sort of are trying to integrate them, I think there is some work there.And finally, the last one was our ability to sell [ unit-linked ] funds. Really impressive. It's really impressive. Just the technology and the reception in the market in Europe has been really high quality.So I would say at this point I'm happy with the progress we are making. Have we seen the benefits we want from this? Not quite yet. Is there more investment to go in the American market? Yes. In North America, that is true. Is there much more in Europe? Not really.So that's how I would sum it. I think we are happy with the progress, but there is work to do.

[Operator]

We now have Gabriela Borges, of Goldman Sachs.

[Gabriela Borges, analyst]

Jim, I wanted to follow up on the earlier question on the [indiscernible] environment. Recognizing that it's too early for 2024 guidance, in the past you've given some helpful color on how bookings momentum today can help you predict revenue T+1, T+2 quarters out. So with that context, are you seeing anything interesting in the bookings environment that would lead you to think that you can accelerate revenue organically into 2024? How does the environment compare to, let's say, this time last year as you think about the puts and takes to budget planning and revenue guidance for 2024?

[James Cox, executive]

Thanks, Gabriela. So I think we feel still very strong. And if you look at the last couple of quarters and the momentum that we've seen there, I think that would align. And just you heard the commentary that Sandeep provided. We feel really optimistic about the opportunities in 2024 now.Q4 is a very big quarter, and we want to deliver on that, and we're really excited about the pipe and the opportunities that are there. But as Sandeep always likes to say, we have a lot of work to do. And I think we feel very confident about kind of the durability and the reliability of this growth across all of these markets and see a lot of momentum.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

If you look at 2022, clearly, it's much better than that. The demand environment right now, if we just compare it to 2022, clearly, it is much better than that. Does it mean that we are all super satisfied about it? No. Was the booking in Quarter 3 sort of what we expected? Absolutely. Was it a little bit better? A little bit. But was it meaningfully better? No, it was not. So I think it is what we expected.And Q4 is another quarter. We continue to monitor it. We obviously listen to other analyst calls, and we also listen to what our competitors are saying. So we look pretty aggressively at how people are doing.But I do think if you just talk about our pipeline and you look at our pipeline growth, it is at the highest it's ever been. So I don't feel worried about our pipeline. Obviously, our job is to sort of convert them with the right frequency and urgency.

[Gabriela Borges, analyst]

My follow-up is on the replacement cycle dynamic in your market. As you think about the factors that drive replacement cycles, some of them are within your control and some of them are not. So maybe just remind us, what are the 1 or 2 or 3 biggest factors within your control that allow you to catalyze a replacement when you have a sales executive engaging with the customer?

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

I think that if you think about it a little bit narrowly, like replacement of an accounting engine, I think you'll get the wrong answer. So I think if you think about the asset management industry, for example, if you think about Clearwater as someone who goes in and replaces an accounting engine and, therefore, the replacement cycle, then I think it's a very different answer. But we don't do that. Most of our win and our growth over the last 1.5 years has been on helping our asset managers grow faster. So there's a big difference. Is that a replacement? No, it is not. What we are doing is we're helping clients get better client reporting, get better analytics and, therefore, driving more AUM to them. We're helping them with mandates. That drives more AUM to them. How are we helping them with mandates? Much better reporting, a comprehensive view versus the old Excel view.So I feel like replacement cycle, of course we concern ourselves with replacing when the opportunity arises, but I don't think we'll wait for that. I do think if you went to the asset management industry and said, "What's your problem?," 2 things. "I need to find ways to grow my AUM," number one. And number two, "I need to manage cost and become more efficient." We solve both of those, not necessarily only by replacing their accounting engine, right? So that's one.I see the same thing on the asset owner side. If you look at the asset owner side, there is a cycle of replacement which we are -- if they get to that state, we win a very large portion of the time. We will win 80% of the time we write this proposal here. But we don't wait for it.So what is their pain point? Well, their pain point is alternative assets. And therefore, you've seen us talk nonstop about our investments in LTx, and then we backed it up with the LPx Clarity, then we went into MLx. So I don't think we look at the market and say, "Okay, what is the replacement cycle? What's the jump balls? And therefore, what can I get?"So that's something which we can catalyze a little bit, but we can't control. But can we control identifying the right pain points our clients have and going out and addressing that aggressively? Yes. And that's what leads to growth. It's not like the replacement cycle has become better and, therefore, we are growing. We just don't think like that.

[Operator]

You now have Dylan Becker, of William Blair.

[Dylan Becker, analyst]

And maybe, Sandeep, kind of just digging into the customer conference here. I know we've kind of highlighted the end-to-end integration, now having kind of the front and back office solutions, but maybe a big takeaway we kind of came away from the conference was around that Insights opportunity. And obviously, AI and automation have been at the forefront here. But what are you hearing and seeing from customers? What were your big takeaways around the ability to drive kind of that level of intelligence through that connected platform? It seems like, obviously, a big driver of kind of what the NRR opportunity ends up looking like, but would love to hear kind of what you heard from the event.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

Absolutely. So first is it's really exciting, but it doesn't show up in our revenue quite yet. So that is something which you'll hear me internally go on about, is saying this is every customer we talk to is really interested. It feels like they've been waiting for a product like this and haven't had it. And I think this technology allows them to get insights and a competitive peer benchmarking and, therefore, where they should invest.But what I could say is we do think it will start to produce revenue in '24, and we do think it becomes a real engine of growth after that. But today, it doesn't.If you ask me about level of excitement from our client base, it is very high. Really able to demo things to our current clients and prospects and it was high, but we also demoed some things under NDA to more limited clients, if you will. And it is quite spectacular what feedback they've got. It just needs to convert to revenue. I'm hoping quicker than what everyone tells me.

[Dylan Becker, analyst]

Totally fair. And I know another kind of subsegment, too, obviously, you guys have had historical strength in is in that insurance vertical. I wonder, to what extent are you guys seeing and hearing from customers, too, how that hardening environment, the ability for these guys to start taking rates at the levels that we're seeing there is unlocking not only capacity but also kind of incremental willingness to spend? I know international is a component of that as well. But how that's maybe freed up some of the budgetary allocation on that side as well.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

I think that from the asset owner -- so go ahead, Jim.

[James Cox, executive]

Sorry, sorry. Sorry, Sandeep. So I think you're right that that could be another contributor. All we do know is that our pipelines are large and larger and getting larger. And so I assume that is a contributing factor to it. We don't know the specific details behind that. But obviously, the healthier client base is, the more interested they are in investing, expanding, growing their business and thinking about that. And so I think that's a rational point of view, but the truth is we just see it through pipelines.

[Operator]

We have our final question on the line from Brian Schwartz, with Oppenheimer.

[Brian Schwartz, analyst]

Sandeep, just wanted to ask if you could shed a little light on the business activity that you're seeing geographic between North America and EMEA. It sounds like you had a really good quarter in the APAC, but just hoping you can shed light as to how those 2 geographies are doing. And then I have a follow-up for Jim.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

I would say is just on a factual basis, we've been in North America much more predictably. And I would still say that Europe is still a little bit lumpy. Our coverage around Europe is not as good as North America, especially when you think about Continental Europe. So are the deals more lumpy? Yes. North America is just much more predictable on what's going to happen. You can look at the whole TAM and you can say, okay, someone will come to the market, and this is what we think we'll win. So I think we have much more predictable here.Asia is the same way, and that's what we announced this year because we don't expect it. I mean, you've got the -- like, wow, this is really impressive that it got done in such a short time in Asia.So yes, I would just say much more predictable in North America, somewhat lumpy in Asia -- in Europe and pretty sporadic in Asia. Now we are investing in sales teams in each of these locations, as you know. We have stood up sales and presales teams in each of these markets at the beginning of this year, but it takes time. And that's how I think about the booking right now.

[Brian Schwartz, analyst]

And then, Jim, the question I have for you was just on the sales and marketing expense in 3Q. It went down sequentially, and that's a change from the seasonal trend that we've seen from the business. And so I was wondering if you could provide some color on that? And did you spend all that you wanted to spend on sales and marketing in the quarter?

[James Cox, executive]

Well, boy, if our Chief Marketing Officer, Susan, heard that, she would say, "Oh, let's double down, let's double down." We did have, if you recall, in Q2, we had our European client, which is smaller than the U.S. client, conference, which was in Q3. And I think last year we had more of those European events in Q3 as a kind of relative marketing spend.But I think you're right that typically we would pick up with the client conference in Q3. I think we'll see that trend continue -- sorry, the sales and marketing expense, I think you'll see that trend up in Q4 vis-a-vis Q3.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'd like to hand it back to our CEO, Sandeep, for any final remarks.

[Sandeep Sahai, executive]

I just wanted to thank all of you. I wanted to thank you for coming out on Investor Day and listening to us talk about our company. I want to thank you for all of you being on this call here today.Look, we are very committed to trying to build a really special company and earn your trust so that when we say something, we execute on it and we deliver to what you expect.So thank you all, and we really appreciate your time.

[Operator]

Thank you for joining today's call [indiscernible] it has now concluded. Please have a lovely rest of your day, and you may now disconnect your lines.