The stock may have flattened in the past year, but investors should consider Okta Inc (Okta, Stock Quote, Charts, News, Analysts, Finance NASDAQ: OKTA) in the cybersecurity space. That’s according to Rob Lauzon of Middlefield Capital Corp, who sees an advantage with the company’s expected earnings growth.

Okta, a cloud-based identity software company with a market cap of $ 40 billion, has been around $ 250 a share for about a year, which is unusual for a stock that has done next to nothing. other than heading north since the creation of the company. IPOs in 2017. OKTA saw gains of 87% and 115%, respectively, in 2019 and 2020, but this year the stock is currently up around 2%. That’s not a big deal, as much of the high-growth tech space took it on the chin in 2021, but for a company like Okta the future should look very bright, Lauzon said, because they are in the right industry to see growth for years to come.

“Okta is cybersecurity for businesses, and as we know, [cybersecurity] is a top spending priority for CTOs at all companies, ”said Lauzon, speaking on BNN Bloomberg on Monday, where he called Okta one of his top picks for the next 12 months.

“Right now the focus is on tech actions in the workplace now that everyone is coming back to the office or working in a hybrid fashion or working from anywhere. Businesses adapt and their IT needs to adapt, and Okta is monitoring your identity and access management for businesses, ”said Lauzon.

“So, as an employee, he’s going to monitor how I log in, whether it’s on my iPad, iPhone, desktop, laptop, wherever I am and wherever I go. ensure that I am who I say I am and that I have access to the appropriate areas within the cloud or company servers based on my seniority. In addition, some customers have further developed their cybersecurity software, where customers and other stakeholders within a company come to perform e-commerce transactions or conduct B2B business transactions, to ensure that these nodes are secure, ”he said.

Okta’s business has certainly grown. The company recorded a revenue growth rate of 57% in its most recent quarter, reaching total revenue of $ 316 million. Of that amount, subscription revenue grew 59% to $ 303 million. Management expects more of the same in the future and has requested $ 325 million in revenue for the next quarter, the company’s third fiscal year 2022, while for the full year, the The appeal is for revenues of between $ 1.243 billion and $ 1.250 billion, which would represent a growth rate of 49-50 percent.

Okta launches its recent acquisition Auth0, a customer identity company bought this year for a whopping $ 6.5 billion, management saying at its recent annual new product showcase, held on Oct. 13, saying that providing Safe and secure digital experiences on devices and applications are becoming increasingly complex and Auth0 plays a central role in what Okta has to offer on this front.

“Identity is at the heart of all digital experiences and provides the security, agility and usability to quickly adapt to any current or future challenge,” said Todd McKinnon, CEO and co-founder of Okta , in a press release. “Together, Okta and Auth0 provide the most comprehensive approach to customer identity. We invest in and support both platforms, and we pride ourselves on empowering our customers to choose with confidence. “

Lauzon said the stock price lull could prevent an upcoming growth spurt for OKTA.

“The title has done pretty well over the past three to five years. We continue to love him. It has fallen a bit behind in the past 12 months, but I think there is going to be another strong profit growth [period] ahead of the company over the next two years as they added new products to their platform, ”said Lauzon.

Okta recently announced a partnership with Canadian cybersecurity company BlackBerry, which will see Okta join a list of companies related to BlackBerry’s wide area detection and response network (XCR). The XCR ecosystem allows the identification of threats on partner platforms.

“Simply put, identity should be a critical part of your overall security strategy. With the collaboration of Okta and BlackBerry, we can improve the security, visibility and correlation of events for users, devices and networks, ”said Lee Tschetter, director of technical strategy at Okta, in a statement. Press release. “Our mutual customers are already benefiting from the integration between Okta and the BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Security Platform (UES), so this investment in XDR will enable any organization to deliver enhanced security and a world-class user experience, in an increasingly complex working environment.