Israeli operating system company monday.com has seen its share price rise nearly 30% in the past three days after reporting strong fourth-quarter results. The company's share price rose 3.67% to $170 yesterday, with a market capitalization of $7,432 billion. The recent increase put monday.com nearly 10% above its IPO value of $6.8 billion in June 2021. That makes it one of only two Israeli tech companies, along with international e-commerce platform Global-e , whose Wall Street IPO is in 2021 and is currently higher than its IPO value. All eight other Israeli tech companies are at least 50% below their IPO valuations, and three are over 70% of their valuations. monday.com surprised the market by leaping into fourth-quarter profit in its third-quarter results and predicting continued growth into 2023. All-in-one 2022 revenue was $519 million, up 68% from 2021, and the company estimates revenue of $688-693 million in the coming years. 2023, an increase of 33% - 34% compared to last year. monday.com reported GAAP net loss of $137 million in 2022, up 5.9% from 2021, but non-GAAP net loss decreased 43.6% to $33.4 million in 2022. GAAP net profit of $22.2 million. Monday.com co-founder and CEO Roy Mann and CFO Eliran Glazer spoke to "Globes" about the strong rise in the company's share price. How do you explain the strong rise, is it just a profit slip? Glazer: "There was an IPO deluge 18 months ago and we entered a relatively saturated market and they didn't know exactly what to think of us. If we 'fast forward' to today, we're doing a very compelling, effective performance. They started giving loans. How does the macroeconomic environment affect you? Are you continuing to grow? Mann: “On the one hand, we see what they all see – we see that our large customers take longer to make purchasing decisions with more people involved. On the other hand, we are growing very large and the market is growing very large. Companies are looking for more solutions in a single product, and monday.com offers them tremendous versatility in managing their entire business process." Glazer said, "The environment has changed a lot in the last two years. It is important to react quickly and we reacted quickly. We prepared different scenarios beforehand and we are proactively managed. For example, in the middle of last year. When we saw the markets were more volatile, we did more internal work and we always managed everything." " Has your workforce changed in the past year? Mann: "Yes, we've grown a lot. We've grown the company by 50%, and that's very important to our size. We currently have 1,550 employees and we plan to grow this year, albeit at a slower pace, as we've grown so fast. This has to be 'digested' because of the situation." Is it easier to hire employees today? "Really good people are always hard to find. Even today we go to great lengths to find people. I think it's a little bit easier, but it's not easy." "Continuously improving loss margins" Based on your estimates, you will record $32-36 million in non-GAAP operating loss this year. When will you present the net profit on an annual basis? Glazer: "According to the original plan, it will be by 2025. But we told the market that there may be one or more profitable quarters, just as we were profitable in the fourth quarter. We still have very significant investment opportunities." The market today values ​​profitable companies rather than growing companies, as opposed to when you go public. It also values ​​the path to profitability. We're always improving our loss margins, and for the second year in a row, and for a fully growing company, we've had positive cash flow - the market knows how to value that." Mann: "70% of our customers are not in the tech sector, and that brings stability because we don't get exposure to tech companies that cut their spending much more. to manage fleets of tractors... So many different things bring great stability." Why was there a profit in the quarter when everyone was expecting losses? Glazer: "Monday has significant marketing overhead and online marketing prices are down 20%. Also accounting adjustments were made for year-end and revenue was $9 million higher than we expected." "Thinking about purchases to complement what we have" Monday in 2022 generated $27.1 million in revenue from current operations and closed the year with $886 million in cash. They are also starting to consider buying a company for the first time. "Of course we will continue to invest in this sector, we don't want to just sit on piles of cash. On the other hand, we're also considering mergers and acquisitions and we're starting to look at a more normal world," said Glazer. prices for companies that we can buy or invest in minority interest. It will be medium term, not short term." Mann: "Many companies our size have made many acquisitions, but to date we haven't, and we are now building on that. We are thinking of acquisitions that will bring us products that will reach our broad customer base. He thinks it will complement what we have." Have you changed anything in capital management by withdrawing money from Israel and abroad as other tech companies do? Glazer: We were lucky enough to have more than $880 million in our safe, and as part of our cash management strategy, it's split between Israeli and foreign banks, and we don't need to spend money. How did 2023 start? Mann: "We're cautiously optimistic today. We're seeing very high demand for the product from new customers, and that's a very good sign. If you had asked me how things were going to look during the more difficult times of last year, I would have expected a greater slowdown at the start of the year." Glazer: "We want to continue to innovate and differentiate from our competitors in the market, improve the product, infrastructures and future growth engines to continue growing, not just in 2023, but in the years to come." Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 16, 2023. Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut Ltd., 2023. Gotopnews.com