Veeva Systems, reporting excellent quarter, nears billion dollar run rate

Tom Paine


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Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV) is now closing in on a billion dollar annual run rate, reporting Thursday total quarterly revenues of $224.7 million for its 3Q FY 2019 , up 27% Year-over-year, beating forecasts, and showing a positive outlook for FY 2020. Its Veeva Vault business is growing at 52% per year and represents 48% of Veeva revenue. The operating margin for Veeva was 37.6% in the quarter, an all-time high. Veeva now has a market value of nearly $14 billion.


Veeva, based in Pleasanton, CA, has a marketing, product development and sales presence on the east coast based out of its Radnor offices. Many of its largest customers are based in the Pennsylvania / New Jersey region. Veeva's industry-specific SaaS offerings are sold almost exclusively to the life sciences industry.

Vault's scale remains underappreciated by the Street, as its annual run rate can triple within five years to $1.2 billion and control "meaningful" market share within the $5-billion total addressable market, KeyBanc Capital Markets' Brent Bracelin said, according to Benzinga .

Veeva CFO Tim Carbral said in an interview with CMLviz.com , "Given the size of the market within life sciences, we think we could get multiple billions [of dollars of revenue] from life sciences."

"We're now on our way to being one of the few multi-billion-dollar cloud companies. And we are in unique in having really strong growth and profit. You know, it's been five years since our IPO, this was our 21st earnings call. And we have exceeded top and bottom line, consistently, on every single call." added Veeva head of marketing Nitsa Zuppas.

Most of Veeva's growth has been organic to date, and the company has been successful in leveraging a handful of pinpoint acquisitions. I would expect in the near future maybe a little more of the same, but there's a lot happening in pharma's digital ecosystem and some larger targets may eventually present themselves. Veeva is also named by some analysts as a possible target for some very large tech companies.

In another issue, a federal judge in Manhattan last Monday refused to toss claims by a New York-based company that makes software for clinical drug trials, Medidata Solutions, that Veeva lured away several key employees and used their knowledge of confidential information to develop its competing product.

Veeva is not cheap, with its stock priced at 14x FY2020 forecasted revenue.