SaaS
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Cloud computing has demanded a kinder, gentler Oracle
Oracle has always had a swagger that reflects the public persona of its bombastic leader, Larry Ellison, but over the last several years, as the company has transitioned to the cloud, it has required a transformation to one that is softer and more customer-centric. Mind you, this was a company that was the poster child for vendor lock-in the 90s and early 2000s. They knew you were looking for… Read More
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Crunch Network
Building a Series A SaaS valuation estimator (2017 edition)
I have financed nearly 50 early-stage companies and the question of proper valuation comes up in every financing. There is the obvious tension: Generally speaking, the existing shareholders would like the highest valuation possible, while the new investors would prefer the lowest. For founders, understanding how VCs look at valuation is critical for a successful fundraising process. Read More
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Salesforce Einstein celebrates its first birthday with several new features
Salesforce launched Einstein, its artificial intelligence platform just one year ago this week. As it celebrates its first birthday, it’s worth taking a look back at the first year and looking at a couple of enhancements they’re adding as a birthday surprise. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Einstein isn’t actually a product at all, even though Salesforce markets… Read More
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Crunch Network
The new wave of Brazilian SaaS innovators
The SaaS market in Brazil is booming. It mirrors the rapid adoption of SaaS as the dominant cloud computing type in a global public cloud services market that’s forecast to reach more than $122B in 2017. Earlier this year, we embarked on an inaugural survey of more than 400 executives of Brazil-based SaaS companies. Here are some of the most interesting things we learned. Read More
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Freshdesk owner Freshworks acquires Joe Hukum as it plans a move into chatbots
After raising $55 million last year to build its business beyond its existing help desk services, today Freshworks (the parent company of Freshdesk) has made an acquisition to help it fill out that strategy. The company has acquired Joe Hukum, a startup out of India that offers a platform for businesses to build their own chatbots. I’ve asked, but the companies are not revealing any terms… Read More
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As Egnyte turns 10, it moves into data protection
Egnyte had a big milestone last week. It turned 10 years old, which is a pretty big deal for a startup. The company has survived and even thrived, but as it moves into its second decade, it recognizes that it can’t live on file sync and share alone, and today it announced the general availability of a new product called Egnyte Protect. The product was introduced in Beta last year, but… Read More
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Algolia raises $53 million for its search engine API
French startup Algolia just raised a $53 million Series B round led by Accel, a couple of years after raising $18.3 million with… Accel also leading the round. So it looks like it’s a love story between the VC firm and the software-as-a-service startup. Read More
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Swingvy raises $1.1M to give HR staff in Southeast Asia a break from paperwork
Human resources paperwork is never fun to take care of—especially if it’s literally on paper. Swingvy co-founder Jin Choeh says that in Southeast Asia, many small businesses are still stuck with physical spreadsheets and piles of forms. Swingvy wants to help them with affordable cloud-based software. The South Korea and Malaysia-based startup just raised $1.1 million in seed funding… Read More
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Qwilr, which turns boring business documents into attractive websites, raises $1.5M
Qwilr, an Australian startup that helps companies turn boring PDFs and other static sales documents into attractive websites, has grabbed $1.5 million to develop its product and expand its global reach. Sydney-based Qwilr raised $500,000 from Sydney Seed Fund and Macdoch Ventures in 2015, but its new financing is provided by Germany’s Point Nine, a VC firm that specializes in… Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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Bizzabo gets $6.5M Series A to make organizing events easier
Bizzabo, a startup that wants to simplify the process of marketing events, has raised a Series A round of $6.5 million. Read More
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New Clerky tools help startups hire and raise funds without running into legal problems
Clerky may not be a household name like TurboTax today, but the company’s business formation software has been called a “secret weapon” by startup founders in Silicon Valley for years. Many Y Combinator co-founders use it to get their companies started on paper. And now, Clerky is launching two new tools called Hiring and Fundraising to help startups move beyond incorporation. Read More
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Okta IPO filing marks public market tipping point for SaaS Vendors
When Okta, the unicorn cloud identity management company, filed its S-1 IPO paperwork yesterday, it was the latest pure-cloud subscription-based company to go public. Wall Street could finally be ready to accept that model and the long path to profitability that tends to be part and parcel of this approach. Read More
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Hull aggregates customer data from all your marketing services
Chances are you’re generating a lot of data about your customers, but it’s a mess to get a good overview of their profiles. Hull wants to be the central hub for all of your customer data so that you can better target them. The startup just raised $2.6 million from Alven Capital and Point Nine Capital, with Newfund Capital, Kima Ventures, Solomon Hykes, Thibaud Elziere, Matthieu… Read More
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After rejecting Google, Namely raises $50M to take on the biggies in HR
One of the big HR startup stories of the last year has been the trials and tribulations of Zenefits, but news coming out today from another company in the space shows that there is still a lot of opportunity in the industry with the right approach. Namely, a New York-based SaaS HR firm that focuses on mid-sized (100 to 1,000 employees) companies offering an all-in-one human resources… Read More
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BetterCloud completes pivot from G Suite to general SaaS management
BetterCloud, the 5-year old startup that launched originally as a way to manage G Suite (nee, Google Docs), has been in the midst of a transformation — rebuilding its entire product from the ground up with the goal of making it a generalized SaaS management dashboard. Today, it unveiled the new platform. The company completely redesigned the service, according to CEO David Politis… Read More
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Salesforce serves as training ground for SaaS startup execs
When startups go looking for executive talent, they want someone with some experience working for a successful organization. When it comes to the cloud, there is a dearth of expertise — with one notable exception — Salesforce. Perhaps, that’s why Salesforce, by far the most successful pure SaaS company ever, has become a pipeline for executive talent. The company launched… Read More
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Classy raises $30 million to help nonprofits raise donations, make a greater impact
A San Diego startup called Classy has raised $30 million for software-as-a-service that helps nonprofits raise donations online, and keep supporters engaged in a good cause for the long run. Specifically, Classy helps 501c3 or other nonprofit organizations to run crowdfunding, online and mobile campaigns, awareness and fundraising events all under one roof. This makes it possible for nonprofits… Read More
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Crunch Network
To be a top quartile SaaS grower, you need to focus on gross churn
SaaS entrepreneurs are bombarded with blog posts with an array of metrics and variables on which they need to focus in order to build their companies. There are so many metrics that are touted: gross churn, net churn, logo churn, renewal rates, NPS score, etc. To better understand which customer success metrics most impact growth, we examined a subset of pre-IPO SaaS companies. Read More
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Productboard raises $1.3 million to help product teams prioritize what to build next
Productboard, the makers of a product management system that helps to organize user research and prioritize development tasks, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding to further its business. The round was co-led by Index Ventures and Credo Ventures, and included participation from Spread Capital. The service only officially launched last month at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016, following its… Read More
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