The low-code industry is estimated to grow from $13.2 billion to $187 billion by 2030. Reston, Virginia-based Appian (Nasdaq: APPN) recently announced its quarterly results as it continues to consolidate within the space.

Appian’s Financials

For the second quarter of the year, Appian’s revenues grew 24% to $83 million, significantly ahead of the market’s forecast of $78.12 million. GAAP net loss grew to $23.8 million from a loss of $11.8 million a year ago. Non GAAP net loss was $16.9 million, or $0.24 per share, compared with a loss of $8.2 million a year ago. The market was looking for a loss of $0.23 per share.

By segment, Cloud subscription revenues grew 44% to $42.5 million. Total subscriptions revenue, which includes SaaS subscriptions, on-premises term license subscriptions, and maintenance and support, increased 37% to $563.9 million. Professional services revenue grew from $25.4 million last year to $26.1 million. Cloud subscription revenue retention rate was 121% at the end of the quarter.

Appian expects to end the third quarter with revenues of $90.5-$91 million and an adjusted loss of $0.20-$0.17 per share. For the year, Appian forecast revenues of $355-$357 million and net loss of $0.68-$0.65 per share. The Street was looking for revenues of $91.1 million and a loss of $0.19 per share for the quarter. For the fiscal year, the market expects revenues of $357 million and a loss per share of $0.66.

Appian’s Lana Labs Acquisition

Appian recently announced the acquisition of Germany-based Lana Labs. Founded in 2016 by Karina Buschsieweke, Rami-Habib Eid-Sabbagh, and Thomas Baier, Lana Labs allows industries to continuously monitor and improve the efficiency of their value chain. It is best known for its expertise in complex enterprise processes, powerful AI, and machine-learning driven process analysis, easy data integration, and ease-of-use. Its process mining capabilities will allow Appian to provide the most complete form of its Low Code Automation Suite.

The LANA platform has a leading proprietary machine-learning algorithm that automates the analysis of complex business workflows, making companies smarter and more efficient. Appian is a leader in low-code process modeling and automation. By leveraging the insights gained from process analysis, it can deploy mission-critical applications with the Appian platform and offer an actionable and continuous process optimization in the same workflow. Prior to the acquisition, Lana Labs was privately held. It had only received seed funding from investors including Olaf Jacobi, Julian Bürklein, and Alexander Koelpin. Its funding details and terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Gartner believes that by 2023, over 50% of medium to large enterprises will have adopted low-code application platforms as one of their strategic application platforms. Enterprise low-code application platforms deliver high-productivity and multifunction capabilities to help deliver improved business process management capabilities across all functions in the organization. Appian is a leading player in the market competing against big names like Salesforce, Microsoft, and ServiceNow, and even with niche players like Mendix and OutSystems. Appian is known for its rich process-driven application development, ability to offer a low-code solution that can handle complex workflows, and end-to-end solutions. Appian has been critiqued for its proprietary expression and scripting language that does require professional developer skills.

Appian’s stock is currently trading at $91.59 with a market cap of $6.5 billion. It had touched a 52-week high of $260 in February and a 52-week low of $62.29 in October last year.