- Record quarterly revenue of $65.3 million driven by expanding AI infrastructure build-out, up 29% QoQ and up 269% YoY
- Sampling third generation Aries Smart DSP Retimers for PCIe 6.x connectivity to leading AI platform providers to support next-generation cloud infrastructure
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — May 7, 2024 — Astera Labs (Nasdaq: ALAB), a global leader in semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for cloud and AI infrastructure, today announced preliminary financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2024, ended March 31, 2024.
“Astera Labs started the year strong, achieving record revenue in the first quarter, driven by the accelerating deployment of AI infrastructure,” said Jitendra Mohan, Astera Labs’ Chief Executive Officer. “As hyperscalers embark on a significant transformation of their data centers to support AI applications with increased capital investment, we're witnessing the emergence of a multi-year growth cycle. Our Intelligent Connectivity Platform, comprising of the COSMOS software suite and semiconductor-based PCIe, Ethernet, and CXL solutions, is uniquely positioned to support this growth and is foundational to deploying AI infrastructure at scale. In the first quarter, we further extended our connectivity platform and started sampling our third generation of Aries Retimers with support for PCIe 6.x and the industry’s first PCIe/CXL Smart Cable Modules for Active Electrical Cable applications to enable multi-rack GPU clustering.”
Q1 Financial Highlights
GAAP Financial Results:
- Revenue of $65.3 million, up 29% sequentially and up 269% year-over-year
- GAAP gross margin of 77.4%
- GAAP operating loss of $83.0 million
- GAAP net loss of $93.0 million
- GAAP basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders of ($1.77) on weighted-average shares outstanding of 52.5 million
Non-GAAP Financial Results (excluding the impact of stock compensation, employer payroll tax related to stock-based compensation from our IPO, income tax effects of non-GAAP adjustments, and certain other items):
- Non-GAAP gross margin of 78.2%
- Non-GAAP operating income of $15.9 million
- Non-GAAP net income of $14.3 million
- Pro forma non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.10
Q1 and Recent Business Highlights
- Expanded the widely deployed and field-tested Aries PCIe/CXL Smart DSP Retimer portfolio with the sampling of Aries 6 Retimers, the industry’s lowest power PCIe 6.x/CXL 3.x Retimer solution, to achieve higher bandwidth and extended reach across complex AI and compute topologies. Through collaboration with the industry’s leading GPU and CPU providers such as AMD, Arm, Intel, and NVIDIA, Aries 6 is being rigorously tested at Astera Labs’ Cloud-Scale Interop Lab and in customer platforms to minimize interoperation risk, lower system development costs, and reduce time to market. Aries 6 was demonstrated at NVIDIA GTC during the week of March 18th.
- Announced sampling of Aries PCIe/CXL Smart Cable Modules for Active Electrical Cable applications to enable multi-rack GPU clustering and low-latency memory fabric connectivity within AI infrastructure. The solution drives an industry-leading seven meters of channel reach over flexible copper cables to seamlessly interconnect clusters of GPUs across rack enclosures.
- Announced the pricing and closing of an initial public offering of 22,770,000 shares of Astera Labs common stock at a price to the public of $36.00 per share. Net proceeds to Astera Labs from the offering were $672.2 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. The shares began trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “ALAB” on March 20, 2024.
Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Financial Outlook
Based on current business trends and conditions, Q2 revenue is expected to increase within a range of 10% to 12% compared with the prior quarter. We also estimate the following:
GAAP Financial Outlook:
- GAAP gross margin of approximately 77%
- GAAP operating expenses of approximately $79 million
- GAAP interest income of approximately $9 million
- GAAP tax rate of approximately (20%)
- GAAP diluted loss per share of approximately ($0.11) on weighted-average diluted shares outstanding of approximately 155 million
Non-GAAP Financial Outlook (excluding the impact of approximately $39 million of stock-based compensation and including $3 million of additional income taxes):
- Non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 77%
- Non-GAAP operating expenses of approximately $40 million
- Non-GAAP tax rate of approximately 23%
- Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of approximately $0.11 on weighted-average diluted shares outstanding of approximately 180 million
Earnings Webcast and Conference Call
Astera Labs will host a conference call to review its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 and to discuss our financial outlook today at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Interested parties may join the conference call by dialing 1-800-715-9871 and using conference ID 8761024. The call will also be webcast and can be accessed at the Astera Labs website at https://ir.asteralabs.com/. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay for the next six months.
Discussion of Non-GAAP Financial Measures
We use certain non-GAAP financial measures to supplement the performance measures in our consolidated financial statements, which are presented in accordance with GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures include non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating income (loss) and non-GAAP net income (loss), non-GAAP diluted earnings (loss) per share, and non-GAAP weighted-average share count. We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision-making and as a means to assist us in evaluating period-to-period comparisons. By excluding certain items that may not be indicative of our recurring core operating results, we believe that non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating income (loss), non-GAAP net income (loss), pro forma non-GAAP diluted earnings (loss) per share, and pro forma non-GAAP weighted-average share count provide meaningful supplemental information regarding our performance. Accordingly, we believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors and others because they allow for additional information with respect to financial measures used by management in its financial and operational decision-making and they may be used by our institutional investors and the analyst community to help them analyze the health of our business. However, there are a number of limitations related to the use of non-GAAP financial measures, and these non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for or in isolation from, our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate these non-GAAP financial measures differently or not at all, which reduces their usefulness as comparative measures. No reconciliation is provided with respect to certain forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures as the GAAP measures are not accessible on a forward-looking basis. We cannot reliably predict all necessary components or their impact to reconcile such financial measures without unreasonable effort. The events necessitating a non-GAAP adjustment are inherently unpredictable and may have a significant impact on our future GAAP financial results.
We adjust the following items from one or more of our non-GAAP financial measures:
Stock-based compensation expense
We exclude stock-based compensation expense, which is a non-cash expense, from certain of our non-GAAP financial measures because we believe that excluding this item provides meaningful supplemental information regarding operational performance. In particular, companies calculate non-cash stock-based compensation expense using a variety of valuation methodologies and subjective assumptions. Moreover, stock-based compensation expense is a non-cash charge that can vary from period to period for reasons that are unrelated to our core operating performance, and therefore excluding this item provides investors and other users of our financial information with information that allows meaningful comparison of our business performance across periods.
