SaaStr

JULY 4, 2021

This was my first venture investment. One of the earliest posts I did on SaaStr was back in 2013 when I made my first venture investment, co-leading the seed round in Pipedrive. I also made a lot of mistakes on this investment I’ll share in another post. Lemkin invest in Pipedrive? Took 10 years to $1.5B

Investment 244

Investment Scale Scaling SaaS 244

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Back when I started investing, in 2013, VCs worked on getting acquihires for their struggling startups. A lot of energy was put in to find a “soft landing” for struggling investments running out of money, even if the returns might be nickels on the dollars. And for smaller investments, no one cares.

Investment 213

Investment Startup Strategy 213

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2023

So I’ve been investing since 2013, and have done fairly well. Some of my top investments at seed stage include Pipedrive, Salesloft, Front, Talkdesk, Algolia, Gorgias, Greenhouse and more: But 2022 was a quiet time. My first year with no brand new investments, only follow-ons. So we’re behind.

SaaS 235

SaaS Investment Startup Branding 235

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

In the latest SaaStr Workshop Wednesday (sign up for FREE here ), Jessica Bartos of Salesforce Ventures did a great deep dive on the state of SaaS and venture in 2013. 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.

SaaS 279

SaaS Startup Metrics Investment 279

Tom Tunguz

JULY 15, 2017

The slowing of venture investment more broadly across the US serves as a backdrop to San Francisco’s particularly strong correction. Note, the levels still exceed 2010-2013. Bloomberg published a post this weekend called San Francisco’s VC Boom is Over. But the 50% decline is real. Series As and Cs are roughly similar.

Investment 187

Investment Startup Venture Capital Trends 187

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

He’s invested in startups as a VC since 2013 and has 10x his fund. Reverse Engineering Your Way to $100M Tip #3 As soon as you cross 5% of your revenue in an area, invest in it. As soon as you see a cluster in England, Chile, and Brazil, invest in and support it. The only thing you’ve suffered is dilution.

Engineering 221

Engineering Business Model Pricing Scaling 221

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 1, 2015

The seed stage investment market feels like it’s changing quickly. These firms raised between $5 and $75M to invest in seed stage companies. In addition, VCs have been participating in the seed stage market as well, making 2013 a banner year for seed investment. Year Number Total Invested, $M Average Round Size, $k.

Investment 100

Investment Marketing Finance Acquisition 100

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Marketo IPO’s in 2013 at $700m market cap. 2013: first investment. And yes, no one could have predicted the run we’ve seen in Cloud in the past few years. But take a look at these examples: Marketo (and Hubspot): Founded 2006. Vista buys Marketo for $1.8B Today, $128B market cap. 100x from IPO. Solo founder.

SaaS 190

SaaS SMB Cloud Revenue 190

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Resources Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse “‘It’s a canon event’ TikTok trend, explained” Chris Dixon’s blog at cdixon.org “ Come for the tool, stay for the network “ “ The next big thing starts out looking like a toy (..)

Blockchain 85

Blockchain Education Trends Investment 85

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2022

Launched in 2013, it has over 2000 employees and more than 60M active users. After a couple of years in building out Canva’s people functions, he is now investing in growing the company as a CMO. Canva started building collaborative design in 2013 and shipped it in 2020.

Scaling 195

Scaling Social Media Innovation Branding 195

Tom Tunguz

JULY 28, 2015

In response last week’s post on The Fastest Growing Areas of Startup Investment in 2015 , in which Bitcoin topped the list, I received many questions about the underlying dynamics of this startup segment. Using Crunchbase data, I analyzed BTC investment patterns over the past 4 years. Which regions? Which stages?

Investment 100

Investment Blockchain Innovation Startup 100

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Or of my investments, ones like Algolia and Salesloft, that yes, in theory, were playing in larger markets, but in practice, their entry points were quite narrow. Worth investing 7+ years of your life in. But others started off in what seemed like … material but smaller markets. Like Shopify and Okta, to pick two.

Scale 191

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital AWS 191

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2023

SentinelOne is still investing very aggressively on the sales and marketing sides in growth. SentinelOne was incorporated in January 2013. But you do take a bit of a valuation hit with lower gross margins. And a few other learnings: #6. Getting More Efficient, But Still Spending 73% of Revenues on Sales & Marketing.

Cybersecurity 217

Cybersecurity Scale Cloud Scaling 217

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Failure #4: Not Investing In Systems This is a big mistake many make in the beginning, and it can be challenging to recover from. Invest in back-office systems early. Failure #5: Not Investing In Digital Customer Success Early Enough Eventually, you hire a ton of people, and it’s chaos. Make sure they’re worth it.

Scale 219

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Scaling 219

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 23, 2018

Total dollars invested have fallen by 37%. In 2013, there was one Series A for every five seed investments. Startups can invest in deep technology by building machine learning software that might take a year or two to bring to the market. The seed market is in the midst of some secular changes.

Machine Learning 175

Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Startup Investment 175

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

I’ve been investing just long enough — since 2013 — to see some higher-level patterns emerge. VCs that want to be part of a team almost always reach out to the earlier stage investors before they invest, at least as a courtesy, and sometimes, to help win a win, and sometimes, to do further diligence.

Investment 170

Investment Engineering Strategy Pricing 170

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2023

And if you didn’t invest proactively in systems like CPQ early, you create a byzantine mess that’s impossible to scale. Invest in back-office systems early. Mistake: Not investing in Digital Customer Success early The cobbler’s kids often have no shoes. For this one deal, we just need to do X.

Sales Hiring 247

Sales Hiring Scale Scaling Customer Success 247

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2020

He has made the first or very early investments in many leading SaaS start-ups through the $90m SaaStr Fund, including Algolia, Talkdesk, Teamable, Mixmax, Gorgias, RainforestQA, Salesloft, PlatoHQ, Logikcull, Automile, Pipedrive, and more. He was named by BusinessInsider to “The 32 Most Powerful People in Business Technology.”.

VP of Engineering 124

VP of Engineering Marketplace as a Service Scale SaaS 124

A Smart Bear

JANUARY 4, 2018

Of course a nice chunk is primary capital, i.e. for the company balance sheet, to invest in growth initiatives, security and quality, and advancing our existing strategic priorities through acceleration and de-risking. The majority of the funds pay back our early investors who believed in us enough to trust us with their money.

Engineering 70

Engineering Investment Revenue Technical Review 70

SaaStock

JANUARY 25, 2019

Founded : 2013. from Astella Investimentos, Spectra Investments and others. Founded : 2013. Founded : 2013. Founded : 2013. Omie is the only SaaS company figuring among 100 fastest growing SMB in Brazil, according to Deloitte Consulting, ranking #3. CEO : Marcelo Lombardo. Based in: São Paulo, Brazil. Superlógica.

SaaS Payments 257

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payments 257

Tom Tunguz

JULY 22, 2018

And in 2013, the Series B median surpassed the 2009 Series C median. of investment through that period. in investment - skipping a round of financing. Seed rounds have not surpassed 2009 Series A levels. That part of the Jacobs Ladder has not flipped. But in 2017, the Series A median surpassed the 2009 Series B median.

Startup 142

Startup Finance Marketing Trends 142

The SaaS Garage

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Founded in 2013, riskmethods ’ software as a service (SaaS) solution harnesses cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), big data and machine learning to protect its customers’ supply chain networks. About Blackstone Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative investment firm. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com.

Artificial Intelligence 98

Artificial Intelligence Software Machine Learning Management 98

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2019

I wouldn’t be upset to learn one of your first customers from 2013 pays less than me. Sounds like a worthwhile investment to me. Make sure you’d have no problems if every other key customer found out about the terms and pricing in the custom deal.

Pricing 179

Pricing Investment Sales 179

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2021

It started off by accident — we did a meet-up in 2013 as an experiment, with no content. But all this was an accident, and personally, back in 2013 and 2014, and even 2015, I knew nothing about events, other than as an attendee. And boy we’ve learned a lot over the years. And almost 400 folks came! 1 or 2 is OK.

Interviewing 177

Interviewing Scaling B2B Investment 177

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

His primary investment themes include commerce enablement, the revolution of the sales and marketing functions, and the use of big-data to transform business applications. In 2012 and 2013, Ajay was named to the Forbes Midas list of Tech’s Top 100 Investors.

Sales Hiring 224

Sales Hiring Scale Leadership Startup 224

Tom Tunguz

JULY 7, 2014

The chart above shows the sizes and frequency of hardware investment in the US since 2010 across different investment stages (Series A, B, C and Seed), using Crunchbase data. Each investment is a red circle. Other segments of the market, namely Series A, B and C, have kept their typical investment size relatively constant.

Startup 113

Startup Investment Trends Data 113

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2017

Late stage market dynamics are changing as hedge funds and mutual funds seek other areas to invest. Median round sizes across the three different investment rounds all exhibit signs of inflation. If we examine total dollars invested in each round, Series Bs reached nearly $15 billion in 2015. In 2016, the ratio is 1.22.

Finance 100

Finance Startup Investment Pricing 100

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 18, 2014

Just a few months ago, Pure Storage raised $150M in the largest ever venture investment in a storage company. Each chart shows the number of rounds raised bucketed by size from $0 to $5M and up to $150M to $200M from 2005 to 2013. 75M investments spiked in 2013. But there are a few outliers.

Finance 100

Finance Investment Scaling Data 100

SaaStr

JULY 17, 2020

Some of these businesses, maybe even many of these businesses, have started investing more and more in selling online to their preexisting in store customers. I wrote–I looked a little while ago and I wrote an early SaaStr post in 2013. Jason Lemkin: It was boarded up until 2013. Jason Lemkin: 2013 had been boarded up.

Venture Capital 171

Venture Capital Travel PayPal Scale 171

User Pilot

APRIL 24, 2024

companies use AI in their operations and the number of jobs requiring AI has increased by 450% since 2013. In 2023, over 26% of investments in American startups were directed toward AI-related companies. In this article, we explain: Why investing in AI in SaaS is a must. About 73% of U.S. This includes the SaaS industry too.

AI 59

AI Artificial Intelligence SaaS Generative AI 59

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 10, 2016

For all the talk about late stage rounds, megarounds and unicorns, early stage startups are benefitting disproportionately from near-record years of venture capital investment. Of the $42B invested in startups in 2015, 34% or about $14B was raised in series A and seed rounds. Perhaps the strong IPO year in 2013 enticed investors.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Startup Marketing B2C 100

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 2, 2023

For those of you who don’t know, my partner Max Altschuler , founded Sales Hacker in 2013 and ran it for 5 years (I joined SH later in the journey) before it was acquired by Outreach where it ran for another 5 years. This means investing in infrastructure to get the most out of our incredible network. It’s the heartbeat of our fund.

Sales Hiring 53

Sales Hiring Sales Acquisition Education 53

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 8, 2014

VCs’ typical seed investment has grown by 50%. Mega-seeds, those seed investments over $2M, have reached historic highs exceeding 80 instances in 2013. The mean mega-seed round is $2.26M during the past five years but in 2013 that figure reached $2.8M, which implies mega-seeds have replaced traditional early Series A.

Trends 100

Trends Finance Investment Data 100

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 12, 2015

But I was curious about how widespread aggressive investments are in software companies. 845 software companies raised seed rounds in 2013, a 40% increase from the year before. Meanwhile, Series As remained roughly constant from 2013 to 2014, and Series Bs rose by about 17%. But in 2014, that figure fell by 25% to 653.

Marketing 100

Marketing SaaS Investment Startup 100

Casey Accidental

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

It kept investing in making its overall growth model stronger. Modeling your loops helps you start investing in building out those new growth loops or products well in advance of when you need them to sustain your growth, because of course developing them takes much more time than improving a current loop. Why did they do this?

Payments 62

Payments Scale Payment Methods Underperforming Technical Team 62

SaaStock

JANUARY 30, 2019

Its partners boast diverse venture experience and have previously invested in more than 70 companies. SaaS Investments: Pipefy, HeyDoctor. Canary invests in Brazilian startups, aiming to transform the country’s startup ecosystem by filling an early stage funding gap that it has identified. Founded: 2017. Size of fund: $20M.

Venture Capital 155

Venture Capital SaaS Healthcare Finance 155

Tom Tunguz

MAY 18, 2014

Fenwick’s report on the state of the venture market and I came across these three data points that summarise one facet of the market in Silicon Valley succinctly: 11 venture backed companies raised funds at a valuation of over $1 billion in Q114, more than did so in all of 2013. Third, geographic concentration seems to be increasing.

Marketing 100

Marketing Investment Trends Enterprise 100