BLZE Stock Rips 68% as Backblaze Beats Q1 Earnings Expectations

Backblaze, the cloud backup services provider, saw its stock soar 68% on Tuesday after releasing first-quarter earnings that exceeded Wall Street expectations.

The company reported earnings per share of $0.04 on revenue of $38.7 million, surpassing analysts' forecast of nil earnings on revenue of $37.8 million.

Backblaze's CEO, Gleg Budman, attributed the strong growth to growing traction with AI customers, citing major contract wins with an AI training data firm and a generative AI video creation company.

The two contracts contributed approximately $1.5 million in annual contract value to the company, highlighting the increasing demand for cloud storage that can handle large amounts of data required by AI models.