Amplitude CFO Andrew Casey is focusing on ensuring “we're instrumenting our business the right way” as the data analytics company looks to capture the attention of enterprise customers — coming as the business consolidates its 2025 strategy for what CEO Spenser Skates termed its “year of the platform.”

The San Francisco, California-based company saw the highest number of enterprise clients during its fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, the CFO said, where the company recorded a 9% jump in revenue year-over-year to reach $78.1 million, according to earnings results released Feb. 19.

The results, which also included an 11% YoY increase in annual recurring revenue to $312 million, come as the company has shifted its focus to enterprise away from mid-market firms, a strategy which last year took the form of “changing our sales coverage, investing in new marketing, building out our product capabilities, for what enterprise clients really want,” Casey told CFO Dive in an interview.

The consolidation question 

The firm is zeroing in on enterprises as data analytics companies are looking for ways to reduce costs, with software spending coming under the spotlight.

For CFOs, chief information officers and other key C-suite members still confronting ongoing economic headwinds, “standardizing on fewer vendors, fewer applications, as long as they can provide the level of services that they expect, is a great way for them to save money, drive greater profitability,” Casey said.

Casey has served as CFO for the company since August 2024, previously serving as finance chief for network and computer security firm Lacework, now part of Fortinet, according to his LinkedIn profile. His previous roles include serving as SVP, finance and business operations for ServiceNow and as VP of finance for Hewlett-Packard, as well as senior director positions at Symantec and Oracle.

With the proliferation of new applications and services in the software-as-a-service space during the COVID-19 pandemic — and continuing, arguably, with AI — there’s "increasingly a focus from enterprises [on], ‘how do I get more from my investment in the technology?’” Casey said.

As businesses look to pare down their technology spending, however, they are also increasingly interacting with their customers and conducting more of their operations in the digital world, making insightful, secure data analytics table stakes. 

“What businesses are trying to do is really make sure that their services, the content they're providing, how those services are utilized, they're the best they can be, so they create the best experience for their customers,” Casey said. “That comes from understanding the underlying data and the interactions that customers have with those environments.” 

Amid this ongoing shift, Amplitude is continuing to add new capabilities in areas such as its marketing analytics segment, as well as “some key features on the AI side,” Casey said. In October, the company acquired a startup called Command AI, which focused on using the technology to improve search functionality, for a deal reportedly valued at more than $45 million, according to a report by TechCrunch.

Aiming for profitability 

Amplitude is examining AI’s uses as the SaaS space weighs the technology’s potential impact, with software firms examining how generative AI tools can be utilized to improve customer experiences, according to a November report by EY. However, AI could also represent a looming threat to the SaaS space, as changes in how data is aggregated by AI models could weaken demand for SaaS tools, according to some reports.

“Since SaaS relies mostly on per-seat revenue, AI is introducing a radical risk,” Ron Williams, CEO and founder of Kindo.AI wrote in a recent Forbes Council post. “AI productivity gains have the potential to eliminate employees needing SaaS applications.”

For Amplitude, “at the end of the day for us, AI is about automation,” Casey said. “It's about how you drive a greater set of operations in an automated way…because we are, at our core, we're a data company, and that data is analyzed consistently, [so] you're able to provide greater and greater insights.”

Doing so is a key focus for the company as it moves into 2025. The data analytics service is looking to “continuously improve” on its key metrics, Casey said, including sales efficiency. 

Improving the relationship between revenue and profitability also remains a goal, Casey said, with Amplitude having invested in “a whole new set of capabilities, both on the product side and on the on the sales and go to market side,” as it looks to effectively position the business.

The company recorded a non-GAAP income loss from operations of about $4 million for its full year 2024. For its full year 2025, Amplitude is expecting revenues at a range between $324 million and $330 million, as well as non-GAAP income from operations at a range between a loss of $3.5 million to positive income of $4.5 million, according to its earnings report.