What happened
Shares of SentinelOne (S 2.71%) rose as much as 11.8% this week, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The autonomous cybersecurity company received competency status from one of its biggest partners, Amazon Web Services. As of this writing, SentinelOne stock is up 8.8% this week.
So what
This week, SentinelOne announced it had received something called AWS security competency status. AWS is the largest cloud computing platform in the world, powering companies like Netflix, Airbnb, and many others, so this status could be highly beneficial for SentinelOne to convince new customers to join its cybersecurity service.
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With its Singularity XDR platform, SentinelOne claims it is the only cybersecurity service that allows enterprises to take action in real time against hackers and cyber threats. The platform is getting adopted rapidly. In the second quarter, SentinelOne grew revenue 121% year over year to $45.8 million and annual recurring revenue grew 127% year over year to $198 million. The company has 5,400 customers, which is growing at a rate of 75% year over year. With this new AWS competency status, investors are likely thinking that SentinelOne can accelerate its customer growth in the coming quarters.
Now what
SentinelOne is growing quickly and looks like a promising business, but the stock is trading at a crazy valuation at the moment. With a market cap of $15.65 billion, the stock has a price-to-sales ratio of 82 based on the company's full-year revenue guidance of $190 million. This makes SentinelOne one of the most expensive stocks in the world, and it is hard to see how investors do well by owning this, even if revenue continues growing at 100% annually.
For example, if SentinelOne grows its revenue by 100% for the next two years, its P/S will fall to about 20 (excluding any share dilution, which is likely to occur). That's pretty close to the long-term average price-to-earnings ratio of the stock market. In order to make adequate returns for investors, SentinelOne will likely not only have to grow revenue by 100% for the next two years, but for at least five, and possibly longer. Can the company do that? Maybe. But it is something you should think hard about before investing in this company.
