Nutanix beat Wall Street estimates and reported first-quarter fiscal 2021 revenue of $312.8 million. While this is a slight (0.6%) decrease compared to the $314.8 million in revenue the software vendor posted in Q1 fiscal 2020, it represents a strong start to 2021 despite the lingering COVID-19-related uncertainty across the globe, Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey said on a call with investors.

And, more notably, the better-than-expected results and forecast sent Nutanix shares up more than 10% immediately following the earnings call.

“Q1 was a very good quarter positioning us well for the rest of 2021,” Pandey said on a call with investors. “The headline is that we outperformed across all of our key metrics.”

Pandey, however, didn’t point to Nutanix revenue as one of the key metrics. Instead he noted his company’s annual contract value (ACV) billings of $137.8 million, which grew 10% year over year, and its 29% growth in run-rate annual contract value to $1.29 billion compared to last year. “Notably, Q1 was out best ACV bookings quarter ever, the pandemic notwithstanding,” he said.

Nutanix defines ACV billings as the “total annualized value of a contract, excluding amounts related to professional services and hardware.”

Analysts, meanwhile, expected Q1 revenue of $298.4 million and ACV billings of $119.7 million.

The company also reported a first-quarter loss of $265 million, or $1.31 a share, compared with a loss of $229.3 million, or $1.21 a share, a year ago.

And looking ahead to the second quarter, Nutanix forecasts ACV billings of $145 million to $148 million compared to analysts’ expected $134.4 million.

“As we entered FY21, our overall thesis for the business going forward centered on the following: our industry-leading product set that seamlessly enables on prem, off prem and the convergence of both remains the best and most elegant solution in the marketplace, Nutanix CFO Duston Williams. “Next, new products will continue to drive the growth of our core HCI [hyperconverged infrastructure] offerings by further extending our solution to address new opportunities that were previously out of reach. Optionality truly matters to our customers and prospects.”

In fact, Nutanix reported ACV from new products grew 87% year over year and 27% compared to last quarter.

The software vendor also introduced a couple of new hybrid cloud products with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft during the quarter.

“Our ACV-first focus will ultimately strengthen our business model via term compression, leading to lower discounting, better deal economics, accelerated ACV growth in a shorter time to more efficient renewals,” Williams said. “This, combined with a market-leading solution ultimately becomes a very powerful combination for ACV growth going forward.”

On the company’s last earnings call in August, Pandey said he would step down from the company he co-founded in 2009 once the board of directors hires his successor. However, on today’s call, Pandey essentially said there’s nothing to report on that front. “Our board continues to make progress on the CEO search,” he said. “We look forward to updating you and we have meaningful news.”