Smartsheet stock is up 15% on Friday: what’s fuelling the stock?

Shares of Smartsheet Inc (NYSE: SMAR) are up nearly 15% this morning after the cloud company reported market-beating results for its fiscal second quarter.

Smartsheet Q2 financial highlights

• Lost $62.3 million versus the year-ago $44.2 million
• Per-share loss climbed from 35 cents to 48 cents
• Loss after adjusting for nonrecurring items was 10 cents
• Revenue jumped 42% year-on-year to $186.7 million
• Consensus was 20 cents loss on $181 million revenue

Smartsheet to slow hiring

With the Q2 results, the Washington-headquartered company also announced plans of moderating hiring. On CNBC’s “TechCheck”, CEO Mark Mader said:

Are you looking for fast-news, hot-tips and market analysis?

Sign-up for the Invezz newsletter, today.

That moderation is a result of scale we’re starting to achieve. We now have great opportunity to start to leverage the team we have. We’re starting to hit that point where we can get yield from our teams, systems, and processes.

Smartsheet stock is down 55% for the year.

Smartsheet just bought Outfit

Other notable figures in the earnings report include calculated billings that went up 44% on a year-over-year basis. Smartsheet generated $7.10 million in free cash flow this quarter.

Also on Friday, the Software-as-a-Service company revealed to have acquired “Outfit” – a brand management, templating, and creative automation platform. The chief executive added:

In a tighter labour environment, companies try to figure out how to do more with fewer resources. And the content automation is just a perfect pairing with that mindset.

Smartsheet’s forecast for the full year

For the full financial year, Smartsheet forecasts 49 cents to 56 cents of per-share loss on up to $755 million in revenue.

Wall Street recommends that you buy Smartsheet stock as it has upside to $45 on average.