Mary D’Onofrio

25 French unicorns, 25 French unicorns, do I hear 100?

French President Emmanuel Macron hopes there will be 100 French unicorns by 2030. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, 10 homegrown decacorns. But shouldn't we all dream of centaurs instead?

The new unicorn litmus test

Zendesk agreed to sell itself to an investor collective for $10.2 billion. An 11-figure sale of any company is notable, but in the case of Zendesk, it's not for the reasons you might initially expect.

Why software valuations could drop more if things don’t change soon

If you feel cloud and software stocks should not trade for less than their historical average, then you have cause to cheer. But is that a valid perspective?

Only 1 in 6 unicorns are true IPO candidates today

How did we wind up with so many unicorns and so few IPO-ready private technology companies with IPO-scale valuations?

TechCrunch+ roundup: Drive growth with Q5 data, BNPL investor survey, calculating CAC/LTV

Round sizes are getting smaller, but investors are raising their expectations: how fluent are you when it comes to your startup's key metrics?

Bessemer’s Mary D’Onofrio demystifies early ARR growth at TechCrunch Early Stage

If you’re a founder building a startup in the cloud and pinning your revenue on subscription-based services, annual recurring revenue (ARR) is an essential metric you need to understand. ARR is prob

Why 2022 insurtech investment could surprise you

Insurtech startups that can retain a tech multiple have a shot at keeping their valuation intact; those that don’t may struggle.

Bessemer Venture Partners closes on $3.3 billion across two funds

Another VC firm has closed on some significant funding for investments — underscoring both the long-term confidence investors continue to have for backing startups in the tech sector, and the am

We’re exploring the future of SaaS at Disrupt this year

It’s been a wild year for modern software companies, often called software as a service (SaaS) firms due to how they deliver their product, from a strong start to the year to a rapid devaluation

Software stocks set new records despite earnings, pandemic

You might have missed it, but amidst the current political-M&A-pandemic-election-disinformation news cycle we find ourselves in this week, SaaS and cloud companies reached new public market record

Are stable SaaS valuations driven by logic or hope?

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. The resilience of the American stock market in the face of near-record unemployme

Changing SaaS startup benchmarks in the COVID-19 era

This morning, let's talk about SaaS growth, retention, and burn metrics in the new era.

The good, better and best of cloud and SaaS growth

What counted as good for SaaS startups, pre-COVID-19?