What happened
Shares of endpoint security leader CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD -1.65%) were up as much as 5% today, but were up 2.2% as of 12:55 p.m. EDT. This builds on the market-beating returns for this cybersecurity outfit. The stock is up some 35% in 2021 with only a couple of months remaining in the year.
So what
As for the reason for today's big jump, CrowdStrike announced a deepened relationship with Amazon (AMZN 0.03%) Web Services (AWS). A few security modules already on CrowdStrike's cloud-native platform now work for joint customers of CrowdStrike and AWS.
Image source: Getty Images.
Specifically, CrowdStrike's Cloud Security Assessment now works with CloudEndure Disaster Recovery on AWS to help prevent and mitigate ransomware attacks (when data is held hostage). CrowdStrike IAM Analyzer is also now available for AWS to prevent identity-based breaches via users' cloud account credentials. And CrowdStrike's security software designed to be embedded and deployed with cloud-based workloads is also now available for AWS customers.
Now what
Given the massive global scale of AWS and the new functionality to help with customer security, investors are feeling optimistic CrowdStrike could pick up some new customers -- or at least expand on existing customer relationships -- with this announcement.
Growth is absolutely the name of the game here. CrowdStrike stock, currently at an incredible $63 billion in enterprise value, implies the expectation that sales will expand at a double-digit-percentage pace for some time. Based on management's full-year forecasts, that values this cybersecurity stock at 45 times current year sales.
Nevertheless, CrowdStrike's top team thinks it will haul in as much as $1.41 billion in revenue this year, a 61% increase over last year. If the company can continue at a similar pace for the next couple of years, shares aren't so unreasonable. Inking an expanded relationship with AWS certainly helps this cause.
