CS Disco - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 revenue was $36.65M, up 3% year over year and near the high end of guidance; non-GAAP EPS of $(0.08) beat Wall Street consensus of $(0.114), and revenue modestly exceeded consensus as well.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $(5.09)M (−14% margin), better than the high end of guidance, reflecting tighter sales and marketing spend and stable gross margins.
• Management raised full-year 2025 guidance for software revenue, total revenue, and adjusted EBITDA; Q2 2025 guidance implies steady growth with software revenue of $31.25–$32.25M and total revenue of $36.5–$38.5M.
• Call catalysts: increased FY guide, continued traction in large multi-terabyte matters, AI product momentum (Cecilia Q&A/Auto Review), and growing large customer cohort (318 >$100K customers; 76% of revenue).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Non-GAAP EPS and revenue were modest beats versus consensus; adjusted EBITDA also better than expectations (high end of guide), driven by lower sales and marketing intensity and stable non-GAAP gross margin (75%).
• Large customer cohort grew to 318, with 76% of revenue from customers >$100K; management highlighted increasing revenue from large multi-terabyte matters, a key forward indicator.
• AI product momentum: “The number of our Cecilia Q&A customers grew 5x from Q1 2024... we continue to make big strides on even faster throughput and higher quality results that are potentially game-changing” (CEO).

What Went Wrong

• GAAP net loss widened slightly YoY to $(11.39)M and operating cash flow was $(10.50)M for the quarter; R&D spending rose to $14.26M as DISCO invests for growth.
• Services revenue growth was modest (management cited 2% YoY), and operating loss remained elevated; adjusted EBITDA at $(5.09)M still reflects negative operating leverage.
• Macro and regulatory noise: management noted potential volatility from tariffs and legal industry developments, though exposure is believed negligible; still a watch item for demand variability (CEO).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to CS Disco's first quarter of fiscal year 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, followed by the number One on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Head of Investor Relations, Aleksey Lakchakov. Please go ahead.

Aleksey Lakchakov (Head of Investor Relations)

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss the financial results for Disco's first quarter of fiscal year 2025. With me on today's call are Eric Friedrichsen, Disco's Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Lafair, Disco's Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our financial outlook and future performance, our future capital expenditures, market opportunity, market position, product and go-to-market strategies, and growth opportunities, and the benefits of our product offerings and developments in the legal technology industry. In addition to our prepared remarks, our earnings press release, SEC filings, and a replay of today's call can be found on our investor relations website at ir.csdisco.com.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements represent our management's beliefs and assumptions only as of the date made. Information on factors that could affect the company's financial results is included in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including the section titled Risk Factors in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2024, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on February 20, 2025, and the company's upcoming quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31st, 2025. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for or superior to measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures and a discussion of the limitations of using non-GAAP measures versus their closest GAAP equivalent is available in our earnings release. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Eric.

Eric Friedrichsen (CEO)

Good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to report our first quarter of fiscal 2025 results, and I'm encouraged by the progress and the traction that we're seeing across the business. Software revenue in Q1 was $30.9 million, and total revenue in Q1 was $36.7 million, towards the high end of the guidance range. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was -$5.1 million, or -14%, approximately $1 million above the high end of our guidance range. We finished the quarter with $118.8 million of cash and short-term investments and no debt. We ended Q1 with 318 customers who each contributed more than $100,000 in total revenue over the last 12 months, up 8% year over year. We continue to see year-over-year growth in the number of customers spending more than $100,000 with us, as well as the total revenue generated from these customers.

In all, these customers represent 76% of our revenue. We saw yet another quarter of growth in the revenue from large multi-terabyte matters. We believe this is a meaningful signal for us for a few reasons. First, it's an indicator for future revenue, as large matters typically remain on the platform for longer. Second, matters tend to expand over subsequent months, which supports further revenue expansion. Third, it reflects the go-to-market changes that we have made that are driving the right interactions with the right customers, resulting in more strategic matters, higher average data per matter, and increased overall usage of our platform. While it's too soon to call this a trend, we are encouraged by these signals and optimistic that momentum will build in the quarters ahead.

We continue to focus on the things we can control, including how we engage customers, and we are seeing early signs that our more focused strategic approach is starting to pay off. First, I'm going to highlight our focus on client services, changes in our go-to-market function, and additions to our product suite. This quarter, we launched our new customer value proposition, "With You in Every Case." "With You in Every Case" captures the essence of how Disco is shaping the future of litigation. Our industry-leading platform equips legal teams with tools not previously available to the legal world. When paired with our expert services team, we're enabling customers to tackle the most complex, high-stake matters with confidence. To be clear, we've always had a strong combination of software and services, but we haven't always been great at communicating our full value proposition to our customers.

We are changing that. The essences behind "With You in Every Case" are embedded in our marketing, sales, products, and operations, ensuring that our customers understand the full value of what Disco can offer them. We want customers to view Disco not just as a vendor, but as a true partner who is scalable, reliable, and deeply attuned to the demands of every case. One great example of this partnership is the law firm Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr. In Q1, Munsch renewed a three-year subscription, doubling their commitment compared to their prior contract. They've been with us for years and have consistently expanded both the number of matters and the volume of data they manage on the Disco platform.

This is exactly the kind of outcome that we're striving for through "With You in Every Case." We earned their trust through the strength of our technology, and we've kept it through close collaboration, deep listening, and a relentless focus on delivering value at every stage in their journey. This renewal is the result of strong collaboration between our customer success and sales teams, working alongside product and engineering to align on their evolving needs. It is a powerful example of how we combine our platform and our people to serve as a true partner in every case, and why we're confident in our ability to drive long-term, durable customer relationships. Moving to the overall progress we are making within our go-to-market, last quarter, we discussed our initiatives to enhance talent, to target accounts, and to align incentives.

We made significant progress with each of these initiatives, and the increase in revenue from larger customers and larger matters is a positive indicator that those efforts are beginning to take effect. We are also seeing nice growth in our Cecilia Generative AI suite, including Cecilia Q&A and Cecilia Autoreview. The number of our Cecilia Q&A customers grew five times from Q1 2024. We are happy with this trajectory and this capability as more customers are leveraging Cecilia Q&A to drive superior outcomes for their customers. With Autoreview, we continue to see strong momentum as well. In Q2 of 2024, we announced that Cecilia Autoreview was demonstrating speeds of 3,800 documents per hour over a 24-hour period, which is equivalent to a 140-person review team. Since then, we've continued to make big strides on even faster throughput and higher quality results that are potentially game-changing for our industry.

Excitement was especially clear at Legalweek in March, where I repeatedly heard how Cecilia and our broader eDiscovery capabilities are ahead of the competition. One standout example is a leading AmLaw 50 firm. In a government investigation involving close to 3 million documents, this client leveraged Cecilia's Q&A and Autoreview capabilities to identify key facts and documents well ahead of critical deadlines, enabling them to craft the optimal strategy for their client. Working in close partnership with Disco, they used Cecilia to conduct a first-level responsiveness review and submit a production. The result was fantastic, a 97% recall and 71% precision across nearly 200,000 documents, well within the accepted industry standards, and they delivered at unprecedented speed. It's compelling proof of how our AI and services can elevate legal outcomes.

Although Cecilia Autoreview revenue is still a small portion of our total revenue, we are optimistic about the future of this product. I continue to hear from our customers how they love our platform. Specifically, I have been hearing very positive feedback on the power of our AI and Core Search functionality, the speed of our systems, the intuitive user interface, the security, and the rate with which we are releasing high-performing new capabilities. Our customers' passion for Disco's platform and the continued execution from the Disco team gives me incredible optimism for the future. We are continuing to release capabilities that make life easier for our customers, enhancing both core eDiscovery and Cecilia-related workflows.

Recent launches include Cecilia Definitions, which enables users to generate on-demand definitions for selected text, accelerating comprehension and analysis, enhanced Cecilia Document Scoping, improved document navigation, and expanded support for Slack and Apple documents and images, along with many others. These enhancements are not just about convenience. We believe they are important to driving more large and complex matters to our platform. We are building tools legal professionals can rely on to handle the most demanding cases with speed and precision. Importantly, many of these innovations were directly informed by customer feedback. They reflect our continued commitment to both industry-leading innovation and to solving real-world challenges for our users, ultimately helping to deepen customer trust and increase wallet share. From a macro perspective, we have seen some external volatility over the past few months. The U.S.

Government administration's global tariff announcements sparked financial market instability, and its recent executive orders targeting specific law firms have raised concerns in the legal industry. I want to touch on these topics. First, regarding the recent legal industry conflict with the current administration, we stand firmly behind our customers and remain steady to support them however they need, when they need. Based on our review, we currently believe we have negligible exposure from these events. Second, in the context of broader macroeconomic concerns, we believe Disco is well-positioned to weather a potential economic downturn. Our industry is unique in that it can experience both headwinds and tailwinds during times of uncertainty. Historically, economic slowdowns have led to increases in litigation across several key areas where we have strengths, including bankruptcy, securities litigation, contract enforcement, insurance coverage, and regulatory investigations.

While we believe we're in a strong position today, the strategic initiatives that we are driving with our existing customers to ensure that they are working with us on their large matters inherently helps us mitigate downturn risk even further. While the exact impact of the potential recession is uncertain, we remain optimistic that Disco's platform, which is designed to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and drive better outcomes, will continue to deliver strong value to our customers when it matters most. In summary, we're pleased with the progress we made in Q1. From continued revenue growth and improving customer engagement to continued innovation across our platform and AI capabilities, I'm excited for the rest of 2025 and beyond. I want to thank our customers, partners, and Disco employees for their continued trust and dedication. With that, I'll turn it over to Michael to walk through our financials in more detail.

Michael?

Michael Lafair (CFO)

Thank you, Eric. In Q1 2025, total revenues were $36.7 million, up 3% year over year. Software revenues were $30.9 million, up 3% year over year. Services revenues, which include Disco Managed Review and Professional Services, were $5.8 million, up 2% year over year. In discussing the remainder of the income statement, please note that unless otherwise specified, all references to our gross margin, operating expenses, and net loss are on a non-GAAP basis. Adjusted EBITDA is also a non-GAAP financial measure. Our gross margin in Q1 was 75%. As we mentioned before, our gross margins fluctuate from period to period based on the nature of our customers' usage, for example, the amount and types of data ingested and managed on our platform. Sales and marketing expense for Q1 was $13.2 million, or 36% of revenue, compared to 41% of revenue in Q1 of the prior year.

The year-over-year decline is predominantly due to headcount changes. Research and development expense for Q1 was $12.2 million, or 33% of revenue, compared to 28% of revenue in Q1 of the prior year. This increase was primarily driven by an increase in research and development personnel. General and administrative expense in Q1 was $8.4 million, or 23% of revenue, compared to 25% of revenue in Q1 of the prior year. General and administrative expenses were relatively flat year-over-year. Operating loss in Q1 was $6.2 million, representing an operating margin of negative 17% compared to negative 18% in Q1 of the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was -$5.1 million in Q1, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of -14% compared to an adjusted EBITDA margin of -15% in Q1 of the prior year.

Net loss in Q1 was $4.9 million, or -14% of revenue, compared to a net loss of $4.7 million, or -13% of revenue in Q1 of the prior year. Net loss per share for Q1 was $0.08, flat, compared to Q1 of the prior year. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement, we ended Q1 with $118.8 million in cash and short-term investments and no debt. Operating cash flow in Q1 was -$10.5 million compared to -$7.3 million in Q1 of the prior year. Turning to the outlook for Q2 2025, we are providing total revenue guidance in the range of $36.5 million-$38.5 million and software revenue guidance in the range of $31.25 million to $32.25 million. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of -$5.5 million to -$3.5 million.

For fiscal year 2025, we are providing total revenue guidance in the range of $146 million to $158 million and software revenue guidance in the range of $125.5 million to $131.5 million. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of negative $18 million-negative $15 million. This represents an increase in our fiscal year 2025 software revenue, total revenue, and adjusted EBITDA outlook from what we guided last quarter. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator to open up the line for Q&A. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again.

Your first question comes from a line of David Hynes from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

David Hynes (Managing Director and Software Lead Analyst)

Hey, thank you, guys. Eric, it's been a little over a year since you took the reins as CEO at Disco. I can appreciate the first 12 to 18 months are about getting internal ops where you want them. Obviously, a lot of time has been spent on better aligning the go-to-market motion towards those higher-value accounts that you referenced. What's the plan for the next 12 to 18 months? What are you focused on to drive faster growth in the business?

Eric Friedrichsen (CEO)

Yeah, thanks, David. It's been a year. I just celebrated my one-year anniversary last week, and I got to tell you, it's just flown by.

When I came to Disco, I had a thesis that there was a tremendous opportunity for us to accelerate our growth and to get to sustainable profitability. It started based on the fact that I knew we had a great set of products, a set of raving fan customers, and a really passionate and talented employee base. It also was clear that there were some problems that we needed to tackle. These were problems that I felt like I could really help with because I've tackled them in the past. That was enhancing our culture, improving our operational effectiveness, and revamping our go-to-market. We have made incredible strides so far. We have got the best employee engagement scores in the history of the company.

We initiated really fundamental changes to how we measure and operate the business, and we rolled out critical changes to our go-to-market, as you mentioned, aligning the majority of our resources to our best accounts, getting them to focus on increasing our wallet share within those accounts, building out our customer success teams, realigning the roles for our salespeople and our customer success people, and changing the comp plan for our salespeople to really incentivize them to sell so that we could have a much more deliberate approach to helping our customers with those strategic and larger matters. We started to see the green shoots from that, as we mentioned some of them in our prepared remarks. The reality is we're just getting started.

Most of the things that I mentioned that we have implemented, either we implemented a couple of quarters ago or many of them we implemented in January of this year. Right now, it's about executing on our strategy. I'm confident that we've got incredible opportunity because we've got the right strategy. We're all aligned on that strategy. We've got fantastic people, great products, and we've got people who can see the future, and they want to be part of it. Right now, it's about execution. We need to stay on point. We have hard work ahead of us, but we need to stay on point. We need to stay focused, and we have to execute at a high level on the strategy that we've already initiated. I'm more excited about year two than about year one, but year one's been great.

David Hynes (Managing Director and Software Lead Analyst)

Good. Okay.

I want to ask about the new tagline, right? I mean, sometimes these things are marketing collateral, but the with you in every case, right, and the promotion of full Disco capabilities. It was unclear to me, is that a nod towards wrapping more services around the software, or what exactly are you trying to accomplish with that kind of positioning of the business?

Eric Friedrichsen (CEO)

Yeah. I think you probably know I've met with, gosh, almost close to 100 customers now face-to-face over the last year. It's remarkable how consistent I heard from them that they love our products. When I would start digging in with them with the types of matters that they use our products for, in some of the cases, they use our products for all of their matters. In other cases, they really think of Disco as a self-service solution.

We're so easy to use. We're so fast. Attorneys can get in and use the system themselves. For some of their larger, more strategic matters, the attorneys are not going to get in the system every single day. They are going to lean on either their internal eDiscovery teams, or they are going to lean on services to help them, whether it is ingesting their data or managing the project throughout. A strength of ours is the fact that we are so easy to use. We are fast. We can be self-service. Sometimes they want more than that. We have great services. We always have, or we at least have for the last few years, but we have not always promoted them. What we need to make sure our customers know is that we are with them in every case.

If they have a matter that is self-service, they want to use the self-service, that's fine. If they've got a large matter where they want our help, we can absolutely help them with that. In many of those cases, they're going to leverage our services to help them, let's say, ingest the data or manage the case. An attorney could wake up in the middle of the night and have a theory about a case that they want to test. They can go directly into Disco themselves and in natural language use Cecilia Q&A to ask a natural language question to test the theory behind their case. What we're trying to get through with the customer value proposition of with you in every case is that we've got the best of both worlds.

We've got an integrated solution with services and product together that can help them in any case, no matter how complex it is.

David Hynes (Managing Director and Software Lead Analyst)

Yep. Yep. Makes sense. Thank you for the caller. Nice to see full year estimates moving higher off of Q1. I don't think we've seen that in a couple of years. Good luck. Thank you.

Eric Friedrichsen (CEO)

Yeah. Appreciate it, David. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Mark Schappel from Loop Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Mark Schappel (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Eric, question for you. I appreciate your commentary on what you're seeing in the broader macro environment. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that Disco is well prepared to weather an economic downturn.

Could you just provide some additional details on maybe some of the expense levers that you could employ or bring to bear to reduce operating losses if we do dip into an economic slowdown?

Eric Friedrichsen (CEO)

Sure. I'll get started. Michael, you can feel free to jump in here as well. I mean, I think the first thing I would say regarding a potential economic downturn here, historically, litigation has done pretty well in economic downturns. In fact, there could be some headwinds, but oftentimes there's also tailwinds that help increase the amount of litigation. There's potential this could create some additional opportunity for us. Now, while we don't think we have too much risk there, we obviously are always looking at our business and making sure that we're doing everything we can to mitigate against that risk.

Fortunately, the strategy that we have to work with our clients on their most critical matters, the ones that also happen to be larger, we can tailor to ensure that we're working on the matters that are less potentially impacted by a negative economy. From a revenue standpoint, we continue to make sure that we're focused on our strategy around going after the most strategic, largest matters in the correct practice areas. From a cost perspective, look, I think the way to think about it is, and I said last quarter that we intend to be adjusted EBITDA break-even in Q4 of 2026, and that still continues to be the case. We're making investments right now to ensure that we're taking advantage of the opportunity ahead of us. This is a big market. It's a growing market.

I think Disco, over time, has the opportunity to be a 20%+ grower. There are certain things that we need to do in this business that are fundamental. I've mentioned some of them already. We needed to create a sales enablement program. We had no sales enablement people. We needed to create a new customer success team because we had a very, very small customer success team so that we could free up our salespeople to actually go sell and grow the business. We have a quote-to-cash project that we have to complete to help grease the skids and make us much more efficient. We have rolled out a very targeted account-based marketing approach. Some of those things require investment, and that's investment that we're making right now.

If we thought it was appropriate for us to reduce costs or to be able to generate more EBITDA sooner, it's possible that we could do that. I just want to make sure that we do that in a way that's responsible, then make sure that we're not missing out on the real opportunity ahead of us, which is to accelerate our growth and to not just get to profitability, but to get to sustainable profitability.

Mark Schappel (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Thanks. As a follow-up, with respect to your rebuilt go-to-market engine, I was wondering if you could just comment a little bit on how new customers generally come to Disco. Is it through in-person meetings or events, or is digital marketing playing a bigger role?

Eric Friedrichsen (CEO)

Yeah. New customer acquisition comes in a variety of different ways.

Right now, the vast majority of our marketing is shifted to more of an account-based marketing approach. It's a combination of events. There is some digital aspect to it. There's a lot of thought leadership associated with it. There's certainly regional activities that we do that tend to be around thought leadership. There are certain events that we go to, like Legalweek in New York in March. We're actually, many of our teams are at CLOCK this week, which is the legal operations conference. There are digital things that we do as well. We have a sales development team as well. As you know, the vast majority of our focus right now is not on just acquiring new customers. It's expanding the relationship with our existing customers. We've got many customers that spend $100,000-plus with us or even $1 million-plus with us.

We only have, in some cases, 10%-15% of their wallet share. By doubling down on those customers to make sure we're working on their larger and more strategic matters, it gives us the opportunity to grow that wallet share pretty significantly. We're still acquiring customers. We're making sure that the customers that we're acquiring fit within our ideal customer profile. We're putting energy there. We've put a lot of resources towards expanding our opportunity within our existing customer base.

Mark Schappel (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Michael Lafair (CFO)

You bet, Mark.

Operator (participant)

If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We'll pause for just a moment. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to CEO Eric Friedrichsen for closing remarks.

Eric Friedrichsen (CEO)

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. The Disco team is making really good progress, and I'm excited about where we're trending. I'm excited that we're able to increase our full year guidance this quarter. I'm incredibly proud of my amazing Disco teammates, and I'm optimistic that the initiatives that we're undertaking right now will be a long-term driver for our performance. Being a more customer-focused organization, improving sales execution, and driving product innovation will be key to drive shareholder value. We're excited about what we've accomplished and even more excited about what's next. We're just getting started. I'm looking forward to sharing more progress with you in the coming quarters. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.