Tom Tunguz

JUNE 17, 2022

Series A has dropped from 30% to 20%; Series B from 22.5% to 12%; and Series C from 18% to 11%. Across financing rounds, dilution from capital has fallen by 30-50% in that decade. Cumulative Dilution Points. Here’s a table of cumulative dilution points for a hypothetical startup raising 4 rounds in one year.

Finance 360

Finance Startup 360

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2019

The first one defined the Unicorn age in 2013, and the second one updated it in 2015. Aileen / Cowboy found in 2015 that SaaS founders at founding were 35 years young on average, and 39 in the enterprise: The average age at founding was 34 years old (same as our last post). So perhaps the average SaaStr CEO started around 34.

SaaS 270

SaaS Enterprise Data 270

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2021

Just a few examples: UiPath took 10 years to get to its first $1m in ARR in 2015. . — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) July 28, 2021. And yet … and yet, that doesn’t necessarily mean they started so fast. Then, it accelerated like a rocket. Procore is a $16B+ leader in construction software, but took a full decade to take off.

Construction 349

Construction Cloud Scaling Product Marketing 349

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2024

We’ve had so many great times with Rippling execs over the years, from CEO Parker Conrad joining us for the first SaaStr Annual waaay back in 2015 (!), We’re excited to have Rippling as a first-time Diamond Sponsor for 2025 SaaStr Annual, May 13-15 in SF Bay! ! to helping kick off SaaStr Europa 2023.

Cloud 292

Cloud SaaS 292

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

It formed the basis for a career at HubSpot predicated on consistent quantitative analysis to scale the go-to-market, which he detailed in the Sales Acceleration Formula in 2015. Mark Roberge ran this regression in Excel about 10 years ago. I think it’s still one of the best books on how to repeatably scale sales teams.

Sales Hiring 349

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 349

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2021

While there are always bumps, I’d give it a 10/10, for first time since #001 in 2015. We’re waiting on the survey details, but despite all the odds, it looks like it will be our highest NPS event since the first Annual in 2015. So that’s a wrap on SaaStr Annual 2021, #007. THANK YOU to everyone that made it out!!

Cloud 317

Cloud Startup 317

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 26, 2017

E-commerce companies may have fallen from their 2015 highs but are still raising four times as much capital as they were in 2010. Aside from machine learning and robotics, every single category of software investment has fallen in the number of rounds relative to their highs in 2015. Cybersecurity investments are classic hockey stick.

Startup 255

Startup Software Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 255

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 17, 2021

Here are 2015 , 2017 , This year, I was certain the categories would have been influenced by COVID19. From time to time, I chart the fastest growing categories of startup investment in the US for seed through Series C.

Startup 362

Startup Software Engineering Finance Engineering 362

Tom Tunguz

JULY 30, 2021

I wrote a post in 2015 called The Runaway Train of Late Stage Fundraising that examined the disparity between the number of growth rounds and unicorns versus the number of IPOs. VC fundraising will achieve a record. Valuations are at decade highs. There are 3-5 financings and M&A every working day.

Finance 336

Finance Startup Investment Marketing 336

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2020

In 2015, Microsoft wanted to help accelerate its SaaS / Cloud strategy and made a bunch of bets. But the reality is, it’s 0.1% of Microsoft’s market cap. For a Really Big Tech Company, any acquisition of less than about $1b is somewhere between an experiment and a bet. Sometimes, a very big experiment. But an experiment.

Azure 318

Azure Cloud Acquisition Strategy 318

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2020

That’s down from 50%+ in December 2015. Well, Salesforce’s relative importance has declined. Today, it represents just a little more than 25% of the value in the Top 10 SaaS companies. Shopify has become a vibrant ecosystem. Twilio has become an enabler. Zoom and Slack have become forces of nature. Salesforce still stands above.

Cloud 336

Cloud Enterprise SaaS Software 336

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2021

But then, growth became insane, rocketing from $1M in 2015 to $600M in 2021! More on that here. UiPath was the most extreme of all. It was founded in 2005 and took 10 years to get to $1m in ARR!! More on that here. Maybe the real point is that these 3 different software companies are so different.

Construction 342

Construction SMB Mobile Cloud 342

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2022

It’s not slowing down Salesforce, Snowflake, or almost any other SaaS or Cloud leader. Salesforce Growth: 2023 $31.8B (guidance) 2022 $26.5B 2021 $21.25B 2020 $17.1B 2014 $4.1B. Thank you Ohana! pic.twitter.com/CMhrBXgHSF. — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) May 31, 2022. We may be headed for a big downturn, we’ll see.

Sales Hiring 346

Sales Hiring Acquisition Cloud Enterprise 346

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2022

In the run-up to SaaStr Annual 2022 on September 13-15 , we wanted to look back at some of the highest-rated SaaStr sessions of all time, since the first SaaStr Annual in 2015. . — dharmesh (@dharmesh) January 21, 2022. If you want to grab 20% off SaaStr Annual 2022 tickets, grab ’em here.

CTO 312

CTO Retention Startup Scaling 312

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2024

X 2015 20.1% - 2016 43.0% It’s no surprise that in those years, the biggest acquisitions accounted for more than 53% of dollars on average. Year Share Good Year 2012 18.4% - 2013 25.9% - 2014 65.5% X 2019 23.4% - 2020 61.1% X 2021 43.8%

Acquisition 314

Acquisition Startup Venture Capital Software 314

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2020

In 2015, it seemed crazy that Slack would auto de-provision un-used seats. Should you let them even pause their account, and pick it up later when their business picks up? You should. This is a Customer Satisfaction lesson we should all take away from Slack’s early hyper-growth and Stewart Butterfield. But it didn’t stop them.

Churn 337

Churn Pricing Retention Branding 337

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

My first exposure to the “Rule of 40” was through Brad Feld in 2015. Relative to today’s frothy SaaS fundraising environment, capital was comparatively scarce in 2015 when Brad Feld popularized the “Rule of 40.” Capital efficiency is especially important when capital is scarce.

SaaS 317

SaaS Technical Review Benchmarks Azure 317

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2023

Ray Wang of Constellation Research and Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Officer, had me back after a long time on DisrupTV.

Interviewing 293

Interviewing Investment SaaS Sales 293

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2020

Founded in 2015, Chorus operates a SaaS platform that provides valuable insights from conversations – say with calls, video conferences and emails — for revenue teams. Behind the Round with SaaStr: Chorus.ai Raises $45 Million. This week Chorus announced its Series C round for $45 million, which was led by Georgian Partners.

Scale 359

Scale Artificial Intelligence Payments Payment Services 359

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 9, 2022

In 2013 and 2015, the discipline’s merits dominated the conversation. A decade ago, Gainsight championed the creation of the customer success category. People curious and passionate about customer success convened at the Pulse conference to debate customer success. Ten years hence, customer success continues to evolve.

Customer Success 336

Customer Success Outsourced Development Technical Support Startup 336

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 24, 2022

In 2015, Dremio started in our offices. Today, the company announced its Series E at $2 billion valuation. The business has cemented itself as a foundational component of the Modern Data Stack. About seven years ago, Dremio’s founder Tomer envisioned a product that would enable customers to manage data and compute separately.

Data 278

Data Cloud Engineering Management 278

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2021

2015 customer account size has grown 4.3x WalkMe’s early-ish customers from 2015 had grown 4.3x It’s remained an Israeli company legally, despite most of its business being in North America. #5. through 2021 (for 500+ employee customers). in size over 6 years.

Scale 299

Scale Cloud Revenue SaaS 299

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2021

Salesforce Growth: 2021 $20.8B Guidance 2020 $17.1B 2014 $4.1B. Thank you Ohana! — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) August 25, 2020. If you haven’t done a SaaS start-up before, it’s different. The reasons are many, but I think they can almost all be summed up in one key factor: SaaS compounds.

SaaS 329

SaaS Travel Churn Revenue 329

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2020

2015 IPO at $1.27B. Today, just 2 years after that, Hubspot in a very similar space (just more SMB) and with very similar revenue, is worth $18B. That’s 18x. Shopify: Founded 2006. Original CEO steps down, Tobi has to take over. Today, $128B market cap. 100x from IPO. Blackline : Founded 2001, boostrapped. Unable to raise any money.

SaaS 283

SaaS SMB Cloud Revenue 283

SaaStock

JANUARY 25, 2019

Since its launch in 2015, it has attracted more than 4,500 retailers who use it as their central marketplace. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Funding to Date : $26.2M from Redpoint eventures, TPG Growth, DGF Investimentos and others. CEO : Tiago Dalvi.

SaaS Payments 257

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payments 257

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2021

SaaStr content started so strong at 2015 Annual (the first one), that most everyone now “gets it” The first speakers included Stewart Butterfield, David Sacks, Aaron Levie and other “stars of SaaS” It got easier to attract more stars thereafter.

Social Media 284

Social Media Content Marketing Startup Metrics 284

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2023

seed round 2015: $1m rev. UiPath has had an incredible history, taking 10 years to get to that first $1m in ARR … and then turning into one of the fastest growing software companies to $1 Billion in ARR ever ! UIPath History 2005: Started as a tech outsourcing company 2014: $500k rev. 2016: $3.5m rev 2017: $30m rev. 2018: $155m rev.

Company Culture 284

Company Culture Innovation AI Enterprise 284

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Appearing suddenly in 2010, it promptly disappeared - confoundingly abruptly and surprisingly unexpectedly - in 2015 - albeit, justly in my view. suffix transformed every company into an adverb and it had it’s time in the sun. killing Hemingway softly).

Startup 323

Startup Business AI Trends 323

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2022

#1 source of traffic to [link] : 2022: SEO 2021: SEO 2020: SEO 2019: SEO 2018: SEO 2017: SEO 2016: SEO 2015: SEO 2014: SEO 2013: SEO 2012: SEO. Even Year 1 pic.twitter.com/5FtzBG2v1O. — Jason BeKind Lemkin #???????????? jasonlk) March 15, 2022. So we’re coming up on Year 10 for SaaStr!

Engagement 274

Engagement Data Sales Marketing 274

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2021

Box in 2015 was the first IPO from the SaaS 2.0 version of BigMachines) for $360m in 2015 to Salesforce ! The second SaaStr post ever, way back in late 2012, was “ Everybody Lies: SaaS Revenues in the Inc. 5000 “ It was a fun one, analyzing the only public source of data on just how much ARR a lot of SaaS companies had.

SaaS 284

SaaS Technical Review Software Review Scaling 284

SaaStock

FEBRUARY 13, 2019

Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Founded : 2015. Easyship also ensures assessment of taxes and duties on shipments, so that sellers know all costs in advance. Users can sync their processes from customer checkout to delivery via Easyship. Based in: Hong Kong.

SaaS Payments 225

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Payment Methods 225

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

Aaron Levie was kind enough to come to our first SaaStr Annual in 2015, just a week after their IPO. Box has been an important part of SaaStr almost since the beginning. And when we wrote in 2014 that Box would surely cross $1B in ARR , many at the time didn’t quite get SaaS yet — or the power of recurring revenue.

Scale 307

Scale compliance Enterprise Scaling 307

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 4, 2024

It’s not 2005 or 2015 anymore, folks. This makes sense. They also are the guys the LPs (the VC firm’s own investors) are really investing in. But sometimes, their best days are behind them. The world has changed. So starting by 30 makes a lot of sense. Smaller firms are sort of sub-scale.

Scale 294

Scale Investment Scaling Management 294

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2021

It was exciting at YC 2015 Demo Day. So GitLab is one of those ones that sort of … always was doing well. It was exciting as it scaled to be a more “enterprise” Github at first. And the engine really never stopped running, evolving into a dominant DevOps Platform for software development.

Outsourced Development 67

Outsourced Development Software Development Innovation Cloud 67

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2021

It seems like every market in SaaS is even bigger than we expected, and importantly, able to not just hit $1B in ARR but accelerate afterwards. Seize the day. Salesforce Growth: 2022 $26B (guidance) 2021 $21.25B 2020 $17.1B 2014 $4.1B. Thank you Ohana! From 1st Earnings Call Inside. We’re all vaccinated!) pic.twitter.com/DQAwBNHm2A.

Cloud 301

Cloud Scaling SaaS Revenue 301

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2023

Then, well, right after we sold EchoSign to Adobe way back in 2011, things picked up, with a slow with material and steady increase in public multiples from 2012 to 2015. Public multiples often were around 4x-5x in 2008, and then the global meltdown came, and public multiples fell to as less than 2x revenue for a while.

SaaS 292

SaaS Trends Enterprise Revenue 292

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 10, 2019

Angels led 156 rounds last year, a figure that collapsed from 714 in 2015. Today, you can’t make the same argument. 2018 observed the fewest number of angel-led financing rounds since before 2010. In that same time period, the median angel round has fallen from $500k to $270k.

Finance 280

Finance Investment Trends Startup 280