Cybersecurity - Red Hot Niche of Future Tech
The proliferation and widespread adoption of technology (both corporate and personal lives) has also led to a higher number of data breaches in recent years. Cybercrime has been on the rise at a double digit percentage pace and it is not surprising that cybersecurity is well poised to remain as a high-growth industry for many years to come.
Besides the conventional industries, it is perhaps time for $Berkshire Hathaway(BRK.B)$to venture into cybersecurity, the latest red hot nice in tech, that can yield potentially good returns in the decade to come.
Given the rapid pace of growth and development in this industry, it is imperative that one only invests in leaders that have the most long term potential that can continually innovate and remain relevant. The name that will immediately come to mind is $CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.(CRWD)$.
For those that are not familiar with Crowdstrike, it is a cloud-native software company that provide endpoint security for devices such as laptops, servers and those that are connected to the network. What differentiates it from therest is that it uses machine learning to detect security breaches and hunt down threats.
With hybrid working model fast becoming a trend in the corporate world, Crowdstrike is wellsuited to support remote work given that it is cloud based and easy to deploy.
So why Crowdstrike amidst the other cybersecurity stocks such as ZScaler, SentinelOne?
1. Crowdstrike as a Market Leader
Identifying start-ups that will be the next rising star can be challenging with many uncertainties. Investing in an innovative leader may be asafer bet. Based on evaluation by Forrester and Gartner, Crowdstrike is a leader in endpoint detection and response, surpassing Microsoft and SentinelOne.
2. Immense Growth Opportunity
The Total Addressable Market is expected to expand from $58B to $71B by 2024. This opportunity is enormous and Crowdstrike has been adding new modules to its platform to expand its addressable market
The recent earnings reports have also shown that there has been a steady improvement in the number of customers using multiple modules, thereby proving that Crowdstrike's strategy has been successful.
3. Rapidly Expanding Customer Base & Improving Fundamentals
It is notable that over half of the Fortune 100 & 500 as well as top 20 global banks are Crowdstrike's customers. Besides having a gross customer retention at over 95% (very impressive for a SaaS company), the dollar retention rate is above 100%. This means that Crowdstrike is generating more revenue from the same customers and has been trending upwards.
While Crowdstrike is not yet profitable, it has exhibited signs of operating leverage as all costs have gone down since 2017. The improvingoperating margin (54%) and free cash flow (30%) for FY22 till date shows the path to profitability and long term potential.
It is without doubt that Crowdstrike commands a rather high valuation since it is a quintessential growth company with a good margin profile. However, given the growth potential of thecybersecurity industry and how the management has effectively deployed a successful customer strategy, Crowdstrike is definitely a company to look at.
Do you also believe that Crowdstrike is also a best-of-breed that Buffet should look at as well?
Happy to hear your thoughts [Grin]
@Venus_M @DiAngel @RDPD富爸穷爸 @MHh @pete13 @HelenJanet @SPOT_ON @Bonta @Boo2020 @koolgal @Big Cat @Bellabing @EKT @SR050321 @VivianChua @Wayneqq @wywy @WYCKOFFPRO @Jaydenkho @Furore @AliceSam @TinyTiger @LMSunshine
Comments