Rubrik’s Playbook - 133% NRR and a pivot to SaaS

Backup is boring. They made it sexy. Let's take a look at their 133 % NRR and the dilution catch.

Author

Nick Horob
July 12, 2025

Good morning!

Today’s deep-dive is on Rubrik (RBRK), the data-security outfit that turned boring backups into a “must-have” ransomware shield.

Here are some highlights.

  • Net Revenue Retention: 133%. Existing customers are spending a third more every year. NRR is something that's going to come up often in these emails. Finding a business model that allows you to grow along with the value you add to your customers is powerful! And something that I never really had with Harvest Profit.

  • Stock-Based Comp ≠ Monopoly Money: Rubrik’s FY 2025 net income looks ugly because of IPO-driven stock comp. Yes, it’s a non-cash charge on the income statement, but those shares dilute owners just the same. Translation: free snacks for employees, smaller slice of the pie for everyone else.

  • 93% recurring revenue, 70%+ gross margins, and an ARR that just passed $1B, all while pivoting from hardware boxes to pure subscription.

This is an impressive business but I can't help question if they truly need all of the overhead they have. These type of companies are under so much pressure to grow that they tend to invest (overinvest?) heavily in sales and marketing.

Regardless, a business with $1B in recurring revenue and 75+% gross margins is awesome.

Take a look below!

-Nick

TL;DR

Rubrik (NYSE:RBRK) secures and backs up enterprise data across on-prem, cloud, and SaaS, then layers on “Zero-Trust” analytics so customers can spot and recover from ransomware fast. Its killer move was re-casting dull backup as mission-critical cybersecurity, grabbing share from legacy storage vendors without fighting on price. Recurring subscriptions now top 93% of revenue and ARR has blown past $1 billion. Key lesson: take a somewhat boring, established category and bolt on an urgent pain point (security, sustainability, AI—pick your poison), and you can re-price the whole problem.

The 30,000-Foot View

  • What it does & model – Rubrik Security Cloud bundles backup, archival storage, anomaly detection, and instant recovery in a single subscription. Hardware appliances still exist but every new deal is term-based SaaS.

  • Revenue mix (FY 2025) – ~93% subscription, 7% support / services.

  • Key stats (July 9 2025)

    • Market cap – ≈ Approx. $17B

    • TTM revenue – ≈ $0.98B

    • GAAP gross margin – ~70% FY 2025; non-GAAP ~78%

    • Net loss FY 2024 – −$354 M (widened by stock-comp)

    • Employees – ~3,200

    • Industry – Cyber-resilience & data-management software

Company History

  • 2013-14 – Founded as ScaleData by Bipul Sinha & team; rebrands to Rubrik.

  • 2015-17 – $41 M Series A/B → $61 M Series C; valuation surpasses $1 B.

  • 2019 – $261 M Series E at $3.3 B; launches cloud subscription.

  • 2021 – Microsoft invests, valuing Rubrik at $4 B and cementing an Azure partnership.

  • 2021-23 – Rolls out $5 M → $10 M Ransomware Recovery Warranty and debuts annual Forward summit.

  • Apr 25 2024 – IPO at $32, raising $752 M.

  • FY 2025 – Revenue up 41 % to $886 M; ARR tops $1.09 B.

  • 2025 – Releases Ruby, a generative-AI incident-response copilot.

Show Me the Money

Financial highlights:

  • Recurring revenue – 93%

  • Dollar net retention – 133%

  • Free cash flow turned positive

  • Sales + Marketing fell to 55 % of revenue

Financial Data

Metric

FY 2023

FY 2024

FY 2025

TTM

Revenue

$599.8M

$627.9M

$886.5M

$~977M

Gross Profit

419.9

483.0

620.8

~742

Gross Margin

70%

77%

70%

~76%

Ops Profit

–278

–307

–1,134

–504

Ops Margin

–46%

–49%

–135%

–52%

CapEx

—

~20

~27

~30

Net Debt

≈0

8

–418

–418

The N.O.O.B. Nine — Competitive Powers

The Nerd Out on Business Nine is made up of Hamliton Helmer’s famous “7 Powers” of competitive advantage (Scale Economies, Network Economies, Counter-Positioning, Switching Costs, Branding, Cornered Resource, and Process Power) combined with two of my own (Data Flywheel and Distribution Advantage).

Power

Score

Rationale

Branding

3/5

Strong in enterprise security circles, but not a mass-market name.

Data Flywheel

3/5

Anomaly-detection models improve with each backup, but rivals collect similar logs.

Process Power

3/5

Pulled off a textbook hardware-to-SaaS pivot—evidence of operational muscle.

Scale Economies

3/5

$1 B + ARR spreads R&D / support, but giants like Dell still dwarf it.

Switching Costs

4/5

Data lock-in and process risk make rip-and-replace painful.

Cornered Resource

2/5

No exclusive patent or data set; Microsoft tie-in helps yet isn’t exclusive.

Network Economies

3/5

Platform improves with more customers but not viral.

Counter-Positioning

4/5

Security-first SaaS angle exploited incumbents’ on-prem complacency.

Distribution Advantage

3/5

Channel plus cloud marketplaces drive reach, though top distributors account for most sales.

Average Score: 3.1/5 - Average of 9 competitive powers. Strong areas include powers scoring 4+ points, while areas scoring below 3 may need strategic attention.

Memorable Marketing

Positioning – “Don’t backup, go forward.” Rubrik sells peace-of-mind and rapid recovery, not storage bits. Core channels: virtual summits, analyst-grade reports, bold warranties.

Campaign

Hook & Channel

Why it Worked

Result

$5M → $10M Ransomware Recovery Warranty (2021-23)

PR & events

Put money behind the promise; killed buyer risk

Generated huge press and a clear differentiator

Rubrik Forward 2024

Virtual summit + celeb keynote

Turned an IT webinar into a must-watch event; built community

Thousands of registrants and strong social buzz

Zero Labs “State of Data Security” (2022, 23)

Research report, blogs, media

Provided fresh ransomware stats CIOs could quote

Won press coverage and armed sales teams

DIY Takeaways for Founders:

  1. Offer a bold guarantee to nuke purchase anxiety.

  2. Re-brand the category with an aspirational slogan, then repeat it everywhere.

  3. Host a low-cost virtual summit; add an unexpected guest to lift shareability.

  4. Use proprietary or survey data to produce irresistible industry reports.

  5. Borrow trust via partnerships or co-marketing with bigger players.

AI Uses & Opportunities

  • Today – Machine-learning anomaly detection flags ransomware; Ruby generative-AI chat guides step-by-step recovery.

  • Next plays

    1. Cost-optimizer bot that shifts cold backups to cheaper tiers automatically.

    2. Natural-language AI help-desk for restores and policy tweaks.

    3. Predictive risk scoring using global telemetry to warn customers before malware spreads.

    4. Continuous DR drills via AI-spawned sandbox restores, sold as a premium compliance add-on.

Bumps in the Road

  • Revenue dip during SaaS pivot – FY 2024 growth slowed to 5 % while perpetual licenses vanished.

  • Security face-plant – 2023 GoAnywhere breach exposed internal logs, forcing key rotation.

  • Channel concentration – Top three distributors deliver more than 75 % of sales.

  • Crowded field – Cohesity, Veeam, Dell / EMC all chase the same wallets, often with deeper discounts.

  • Macro headwinds – Lengthening enterprise cycles demand faster ROI proof.

Your Swipe File

  • Turn a chore into a crisis solution – Reframe your value so buyers have to act.

  • Pivot early, not late – Cannibalize your own model before someone else does.

  • Guarantee what matters most – A gutsy warranty can vault you past feature wars.

  • Leverage partner giants – Attach to a platform and ride the co-sell wave.

  • Make numbers talk – Publish data-rich reports; they feed PR, arm sales, and cement authority.