Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 8, 2024

Both structured data & unstructured data (extracting information from presentations & pdfs) can be built using Cortex. Cortex is a suite of AI building blocks that enable customers to leverage large language models (LLMs) & build applications.

Artificial Intelligence 271

Artificial Intelligence AI Search AI Investment 271

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2025

This exclusive opportunity includes: A featured 2-minute demo slot on the Mayfield AI Demo Stage A chance to win a $500K+ SAFE investment from the Mayfield AI Garage Exposure to SaaStr’s community of SaaS and AI leaders To enter, complete the application linked below.

AI 217

AI Travel Consulting Startup 217

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2025

Be Present. #2. Would you invest more today? In rough order: #1. Hiding Important Things. VCs are wired to take bad news. But not for it to be thrown at them at the last minute: If Times Are Tough — Don’t Hide. Not Knowing the Zero Cash Date Cold. You just have to know exactly when the cash runs out. And manage to it.

Investment 192

Investment Management Marketing Business 192

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

The most significant advantage came from customer acquisitioncustomers who might reject an incomplete single-product offering were willing to overlook gaps when presented with a multi-product platform vision. This strategy paid off dramatically: at Samsara, their second product has now surpassed their original offering in ARR.

Scale 245

Scale Transportation Scaling SMB 245

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 21, 2025

Sources used in this post include Bloomberg, Pitchbook and company filings The information presented in this newsletter is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the view of any other person or entity, including Altimeter Capital Management, LP ("Altimeter"). Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Cloud 188

Cloud Pricing Subscription Payment Features 188

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Sources used in this post include Bloomberg, Pitchbook and company filings The information presented in this newsletter is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the view of any other person or entity, including Altimeter Capital Management, LP ("Altimeter"). Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Cloud 144

Cloud Banking Subscription Payment Features 144

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2024

Despite ever-present uncertainty and change, our analysis suggests that public markets remain resilient and that AI continues to present a new vector of opportunity.” Private Equity does have record amounts to invest. #4. Software growth is the next big phase from AI investment. ” #1. Fingers crossed!!

Software 330

Software AI Scale Investment 330

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2021

As the premier SaaS conference , SaaStr Annual’s ability to attract top-tier investment firms and the best SaaS Founders creates unparalleled Founder <> Investor networking and learning opportunities. . Generation Investment Management. How Women Invest. Megeve Investments. PHARUS Investment Partners.

Scale 312

Scale Venture Capital Innovation Banking 312

USIO

APRIL 24, 2025

That complexity presents a huge opportunity for Healthcare CRMs, ERPs, and ISVs to drive real value. Invest in Embedded Payment Technology Whether you build, buy, or partner, embedding payment solutions into your software stack creates a seamless, end-to-end experience for users.

Merchant Services 130

Merchant Services Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services 130

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 24, 2025

Sources used in this post include Bloomberg, Pitchbook and company filings The information presented in this newsletter is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the view of any other person or entity, including Altimeter Capital Management, LP ("Altimeter"). Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Enterprise 157

Enterprise AI Cloud Artificial Intelligence 157

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2021

Let’s examine the relationship between total venture capital investment and the 10 year Treasury in some detail. The y-axis tracks enture capital investment by year and the year of the data point resides in the reddish circle. In short, we should expect some cooling. Do you remember this shape from high school math?

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Marketing Government Investment 363

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2025

If you’ve used Zendesk, Algolia, Contentful, or Loom, you’ve experienced the impact of his investment thesis firsthand.

Data 147

Data Acquisition AI Finance 147

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 7, 2025

Sources used in this post include Bloomberg, Pitchbook and company filings The information presented in this newsletter is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the view of any other person or entity, including Altimeter Capital Management, LP ("Altimeter"). Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Cloud 157

Cloud Forecasting Subscription Payment Features 157

SaaStr

AUGUST 11, 2024

As a reminder, the SaaStr Fund is investing $170,000,000 in seed and late-seed investments. Algolia and Legacy Investment Talkdesk in BVP Cloud 100! At SaaStr Annual in September , their CTO will present all the hard data on how it actually works. A big week at SaaStr Fund! Some great news this week: #1. We led the U.S.

Cloud 306

Cloud AI Generative AI CTO 306

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2024

At least, send enough of it so I already want to invest by the time I’ve read it. What will is a deck detailed enough to present the entire story in a very compelling format. Make the deck so compelling, the VC already wants to invest before the first meeting. Dear SaaStr: Do VCs Like Short, Teaser Pitch Decks?

Investment 303

Investment Sales 303

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 14, 2025

Sources used in this post include Bloomberg, Pitchbook and company filings The information presented in this newsletter is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the view of any other person or entity, including Altimeter Capital Management, LP ("Altimeter"). Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Cloud 144

Cloud Software Subscription Payment Features 144

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2020

Have Your Team Present More, and You Less. Instead, backfill them and help them present the best that they can. Just assume none of your investors invest again. Professional investors can even write off any given investment if they have to. Share it, so everyone knows and can plan accordingly. More on that here.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting New CTO Scale CTO 363

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 11, 2024

This behavior can create a surge in purchasing activity, as organizations look to make strategic investments without losing their allocated funds. This is for information purposes and should not be construed as an investment recommendation. Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Cloud 167

Cloud Cost optimization & reporting GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Review 167

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

First, VCs that attend regular board meetings are much, much more likely to invest again. Then, they have to present a dif to those goals at each meeting. A board meeting presentation is the best way. A few non-obvious ways you can use having regular Board meetings to help you. And to make intros for the next round.

Investment 363

Investment Engineering Management Company Culture 363

TechEmpower SaaS

OCTOBER 9, 2023

This presents businesses with an opportunity to enhance their search functionalities for both internal and external users. It gives stakeholders an opportunity to assess the benefits and challenges before making additional investment on iterative improvements. A PoC is a pragmatic step to evaluate the feasibility and results.

AI Search 519

AI Search Artificial Intelligence Generative AI AI 519

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2020

You should already know most of what your team presents. It’s usually a great set of slides for you and your VPs to present from, that everyone has already put a ton of work into … without having to do a lot of new work. After all, you already presented your board slides just a week or two ago before. This is true.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Management Engineering Customer Success 363

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

One metric stood out to me I hadn’t seen presented before: just how many private SaaS companies (i.e., I’ve invested at the seed level at 6 that are past $100m ARR today, so I assumed it was a bit more than 150. startups) have crossed $100,000,000. It’s only 150.

SaaS 340

SaaS Startup Metrics Investment 340

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

So Redpoint Ventures published some of the slides they recently presented to their Limited Partners (their own investors) here. And what it says is that even though Seed stage investing remains arguably as strong as ever … Series A hasn’t bounced back.

AI 348

AI Pricing Investment Data 348

SaaStr

JULY 26, 2024

Learn from partners presenting in various sessions throughout the conference, including Andrew Steele at Activant Capital , Ajay Vashee from IVP , Sandhya Heghe at Unusual VC , and Seema Amble from Andreessen Horowitz. I loved the recent write-up by Lighter Capital of SaaStr Annual.

Banking 305

Banking Finance Startup Investment 305

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2021

You change / make up a new valuation based on how much the VC wants to invest. Don’t change the price, at least not explicitly, based on a VC saying they’d invest $Xm or $Xk. “Oh Oh if you want to invest $2m, then the price is $20m. Don’t bring up anecdotes about every company a VC has invested in. Don’t do that.

Venture Capital 298

Venture Capital Investment Pricing Business Model 298

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2022

That’s 10% of all the invested capital!! Let’s talk about why it’s a good investment: Trade shows / events produce a lot of so-called “leads”, but a lot of cr*p leads and long lead time leads. This is some of the magic in the math of the investment. You gotta be present. And I said do it.

Scale 339

Scale Investment Retention Customer Success 339

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

KBCM helpfully presents a very detailed comparison of “Rule of 40” Qualifiers (i.e. Growth + Margin = Above 40%) versus Non-Qualifiers (Below 40%): Given the wealth of information presented by KBCM, we examined the material differences. What Drives The SaaS “Rule of 40”?

SaaS 321

SaaS Technical Review Benchmarks Azure 321

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

Generally, companies are split into different valuation types: Value Investing: Based on the company’s profits. Growth Investing: Based on revenue growth. Consider the example of the software company Snowflake: This business raised lots of capital and invested it in efforts to grow revenue. 2 Gross Margin. Subscribe. #4

Metrics 279

Metrics Banking Benchmarks Investment 279

Clouded Judgement

JULY 12, 2024

Because your competitors are investing in AI efforts, you also have to invest in AI efforts. At the end of the day these investments might not immediately result in better business outcomes (ie more revenue), but they certainly lead to better end user experiences. Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Cloud 288

Cloud AI Investment User Experience 288

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

In addition, this year Mayfield is sponsoring our VC AI Pitch Stage and will invest from $500k-$5m in the winner! And a full half of 2025 will be dedicated in the latest in AI for B2B, including 100+ of the best new players in B2B AI presenting on our new AI Demo Stage! Meet and Find Your Next VP / CXO!

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2022

I needed a bridge myself, and every Unicorn I’ve invested in has had a year of hell. I’ve made exactly $0 on those investments. If a lot of money has already gone in, does it make sense to invest, say, another 20% of the initial investment if it dramatically increases the odds you at least get your money back?

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital SMB Startup Investment 318

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 26, 2024

Software and robotics, for example, have always presented immense potential to automate repetitive mundane tasks that humans perform, freeing them up to do more valuable work. An enduring promise of new technologies is to find ways to increase human productivity.

Investment 130

Investment Healthcare AI Business Model 130

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

Its not just about building relationships, its about understanding their needs, getting unfiltered feedback, and showing them youre invested in their success. Roadmap Presentations Are Gold If youre unsure how to structure these visits, do a roadmap presentation. Heres why it works: 1. Thats how powerful it is.

Scale 100

Scale Travel Technical Review Retention 100

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

And also by the fact they are really a bet on the future, and not the present. So what you see is the steepest decline in ARR multiples by stage that I’ve ever seen in my career investing or as a founder. This is justified both by the fact they are higher growing (or should be) that public SaaS companies. Are there exceptions?

Revenue 326

Revenue AI Startup Investment 326

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2025

This isn’t just about priceit’s about the importance of the purchase and how much time/energy buyers will invest in making the right decision. Also crucial: understanding the consideration level of your purchase. Everything else in the model is just a guide.

Sales Hiring 208

Sales Hiring Marketing Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 208

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2024

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? Because company data now lives in a constellation of cloud applications, this data is not readily accessible for data scientists or analysts, nor is it easily presentable in critical business applications used for decision-making. Check that out here. Why did you do the deal?

Technical Review 307

Technical Review Scale Management Sales Hiring 307

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2023

Managing Partner at Zelkova Ventures, Jay Levy, believes starting a business now presents a unique opportunity: “It is a great time to launch a company…talent is more accessible, competition is reduced, and frankly, you’re forced to focus on economics and building a sustainable enterprise.” Fortunately, there are ways to correct this.

Communication 277

Communication Startup Investment Strategy 277