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Despite rapid revenue growth early on, hitting $100M in the first two years, Rubrik pivoted away from a perpetual license approach, transitioning customers to an annual subscription model. This, along with focusing much more on enterprise cybersecurity and cloud data services has yielded promising financial results. Despite being unprofitable (as per its S-1 filing), its recurring revenue surged by about 40% year-over-year, significantly boosting its share of overall revenue composition to 86% from 39% in 2020, as estimated by Sacra.

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Rubrik's Financial Data

_{This section has been updated to reflect changes as of April 22, 2024.}

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Rubrik 180D

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Rubrik 90D

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Rubrik 30D

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Corporate Round Valuation

<span class="date">2021-07-15</span>
<span class="value">$4.27B</span>

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Implied Valuation

<span class="date">2024-04-22</span>
<span class="value">$5.52B</span>

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Change Since Last Round

<span class="date">2021-07-15 → 2024-04-22</span>

<span class="value green">+38.05%</span>

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This should all be welcome news for both their eminent early and later stage backers (including Lightspeed, Greylock and Microsoft), with the former two undoubtedly very much looking forward to a positive exit here. And based on the secondary market data from ApeVue, they should all be handsomely compensated on their investments.

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Since last top-up from Microsoft in early 2021 (at the same $4B valuation as their 2018 Series E), Rubrik’s valuation is up almost 40%.

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Change in ApeVue's Implied Valuation from Last Funding Round Valuation

^{ApeVue's implied valuation is computed on April 8, 2024 and compared to company's latest funding round valuation. Rubrik's valuations have increased the most by 39% from their July 2021 corporate round at $4B, to $5.56B i.e. current ApeVue's implied valuation. On the other hand, Airtable's implied valuation has decreased the most by 71% from their latest December 2021 Series F at $11B, to ApeVue's current implied valuation at $3.17B.}

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Return on ApeVue's Composite Price

^{ApeVue's composite price between April 9, 2023, and April 8, 2024, for the selected data companies.}

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But just as the significant changes in the business model that got them here, the story of their valuation is also one of many ups and downs. Having reached almost $8B at the start of 2022, it almost halved over the course of the following ~6 months, much like the rest of the VC-backed private market, settling at just above its last round valuation of $4B.

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However, while some other data, security, and management companies remained in the doldrums well into 2023, Rubrik began its ascent already in late Q3 of 2022, likely propelled by the recognition of their successful pivot towards recurring revenues.

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ApeVue Implied Valuation

^{ApeVue computes implied valuation based on the ApeVue's composite price and share count deduced from the news and company's filing. "CP" for Rubrik indicates the corporate round.}

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ApeVue activity and bid/offer volume ratios gave predictive signals of sell-side pressure in Q1-Q2 2022 that were precipitating the valuation decline, but were soon followed by higher activity and recovering bid volumes beginning midway through Q3. Some of those gains were not sustained as investor attention was increasingly captured by the rising tide of AI, a few months into 2023. 

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Quarterly Bid and Ask Volume Ratio

^{ApeVue observed a higher bid volume than ask volume for Rubrik from the beginning of 2021 until the end of Q4 2021. In Q1 and Q2 of 2022, almost all of the volume was on the ask side. Q3 of 2023 was the best quarter in terms of bid volume, covering 95% of the total volume. As of Q1 2024, 40% of Rubrik's volume is on the bid side.}

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Change in 30D Volume from 30D Average over Last 180D

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^{Change in total volume (including Bid, Ask, and Trade) for the period from March 10, 2024, to April 8, 2024, in comparison to the average total volumes calculated using a 30-day windows between October 12, 2023, to April 8, 2024.}

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It is, however, interesting to note the resurgence in interest in Rubrik and others in the data management space coming into the Databricks’ latest round in Q3 2023. That had a positive impact both on activity levels, buyer interest and the valuation of Rubrik, which blew past and held above $6B for a number of weeks heading into the end of 2023, supported by stronger buyer activity through Q3 and early Q4 (as seen in the chart).

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Activity Trend

^{Rubrik's activity has fluctuated over the past three years, but the trend has been moving in an upward direction, particularly in Q1 of 2024.}

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Heading into year end activity and volumes were muted, but since mid Q1 2024 activity once again began to surge (putting them behind only Databricks in the number of broker contributions seen over the previous 90 days), likely in anticipation of the IPO.

Interestingly, however, the volume of offers increased more rapidly than bids, driving down the price and consequently pulling the YTD returns into negative territory.

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90D Activity

^{Activity as measured by composite depth from broker contributions within the last 90-day of April 8, 2024.}

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This recent flurry of seller activity notwithstanding, there still appears to to be a lot of interest in the name and plenty of commentary is pointing to their positive trends in raising recurring revenue and managing costs well. All this, coupled with their very aggressive sales and marketing spend (77% of revenues, which is almost double that of some of their direct competitors, per Sacra), does paint a picture of a growth story that still has plenty of steam to run on. 

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90D Bid and Ask Volume Ratio

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^{Bid and ask volume ratio between January 10, 2024, and April 8, 2024. With 78% of its volume on the bid side, Cribl demonstrates a strong buying interest in the market. In contrast to Cribl, Airtable has a high ask volume ratio at 76%. With 41% of its volume on the bid side, Rubrik exhibits a relatively balanced distribution between bid and ask volumes.}

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Given the recent increasing bid and offer side activity observed by ApeVue, our expectation is that this IPO will likely be similarly enthusiastically received by the markets and potentially set an example to other enterprise SaaS players in the Data and Security segment and, perhaps, beyond. 

Rubrik is providing live data access for recovery and application development. This innovation ends a decade-long drought in backup and recovery technology, enabling businesses to swiftly manage data across private and public clouds. With Rubrik, companies can navigate the explosion of data with ease and efficiency, ensuring robust data protection and streamlined operations.