Coupa Software Inc. easily beat earnings expectations today in its first quarterly report since going public in October.

The maker of cloud-based software to help companies manage their spending saw its shares rise more than 7 percent in after-hours trading following the third-quarter report. That came after a drop of 1.5 percent in regular trading, to about $27.60 a share. Update: In trading on Tuesday, shares were rising only 1 percent.

The company reported a net loss of $6.7 million, or 36 cents a share, on revenues of $35.4 million, up 55 percent from a year ago. After adjusting for stock compensation and other costs, the loss was 22 cents a share, less than half the 47-cent loss on $31 million in revenues that analysts on average had expected, according to FactSet.

Investors, however, likely were reacting less to the third-quarter results than the outlook for the current quarter, which similarly outpaced forecasts. Coupa said it expects an adjusted loss of 16 to 19 cents a share, lower than analysts’ predictions of a 23-cent loss. The company said it’s expecting revenues of $35 million to $36 million in the fourth quarter, compared with analysts’ $32.4 million forecast.

For the full 2017 fiscal year, ending in January, the company says it expects revenues between $131.3 million and $131.8 million and an adjusted loss of $1.67 to $1.73 a share.

During the earnings conference call, Coupa Chief Executive Rob Bernshteyn (above) touted several new customer wins, including Federal Express, Nasdaq and DBS Bank in Asia. “In Q3 we crossed a key milestone of more than $300 billion of cumulative spend that has flowed through the Coupa platform, including more than $100 billion of spend in the first nine months of FY17 alone,” he said. “This has helped us deliver over $10 billion in cumulative savings to our customers.”

Chief Financial Officer Todd Ford said the company earned a record 68 percent gross profit margin in the quarter. “We are in the early stages of showing scale in our business model,” he said in comments on the call.

Before the report, Barclay’s analyst Raimo Lenschow said he thinks the company remains a “compelling” investment, with only one main competitor, Ariba Inc., which was acquired by SAP in October 2012. “The company is poised to be the next-gen spend management solution in a market that is large but fragmented, which leaves room to take market share,” he wrote in a note to clients.

The company went public in early October at $18 a share, and the price jumped as high as $41.61 the first day of trading but closing at $33.28. Since then, shares have fallen back considerably, but it was still seen as a bellwether for a resurgent IPO market.

Photo courtesy of Coupa Software