F5 Networks reported a revenue increase of 10 percent year-over-year to $483.6 million in its third-quarter financial results, released Wednesday.
New F5 Networks CEO Manny Rivelo has begun his reign with a strong financial start.
The Seattle company reported Wednesday it had revenue of $483.6 million in its third quarter, an increase of 10 percent year over year. Profit was $93.2 million, a 17 percent increase. Both beat analyst expectations.
Rivelo attributed much of the growth to strong software sales.
“It’s very important, because we are viewed historically as a hardware company,” Rivelo said. Software sales now make up nearly one-third of revenue, he said, and that division is growing as companies move more systems to the cloud and need agile, quick products.
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Rivelo officially took over as CEO on July 1 but started leading the company after his appointment was announced about three months ago. His predecessor, John McAdam, walked into a company executive meeting in April, thanked the team and introduced Rivelo as the new CEO. McAdam will now serve as chairman of the board.
“It was very crisp on the transition,” Rivelo said in a phone interview Wednesday. “To a large degree, with some mentoring and coaching from John, I started 90 days ago.”
Rivelo had served as executive vice president of strategic solution since 2011, overseeing F5’s expansion into the security business.
Previously, Rivelo worked at competitor Cisco Systems for nearly 20 years.
F5’s biggest product works to ensure that applications are delivered over networks quickly and securely. The company recently made a big dive into the online security business to reinforce network security as more companies move their systems to the cloud.
F5 sold a security firewall to a “tier-one operator in North America,” Rivelo said. He can’t identify the customer but said the multimillion-dollar deal is a big win.
The company also is seeing traction with user-authorization technology and enabling secure single sign-on, Rivelo said.
The company, in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood, hired 76 people during the third quarter, which ended in June, and plans to hire at least 125 people during the fourth quarter.
F5 wanted to hire 100 people in the third quarter but is facing steep competition for talent from other leading tech companies and well-funded startups in the region.
“We are being more aggressive on hiring, and we want to continue that going forward,” Rivelo said.
The company brought in a new executive vice president of human resources, Kristen Roby Dimlow, in June to speed hiring.
F5 grew at an accelerated rate during McAdam’s tenure.Under the longtime former CEO, the company increased head count to more than 4,000 and revenue from $108.6 million in 2000 to $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2014.
F5’s stock rose 5.6 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday, to $125.10. It closed the regular trading day at $118.50.