Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 20, 2016

2016 was a year of change for SaaS, and most of the story was the public market. The Hottest Startup Sectors In 2016 - published on January 3rd, this post reviewed the patterns of investment in startups, and in particular, the sectors where investors were increasing their investment the fastest. The end of the year is fast approaching.

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Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

In the last 22 months, there have been 4 $1B+ software IPOs and 3 $1B+ software acquisitions. 13 software companies went public last year raising $1.6B, an average of $105M per company. During the same period, forward revenue multiples, the primary metric used in public markets to value software companies, has fallen from 8.1x

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SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

UiPath is one of the most amazing not-really-an-overnight success stories in Cloud, SaaS and software. It was founded way back in 2005 as an outsourcing company, then developed Windows software to automate scripts and more, and turned this into a powerhouse for automating complex functions integrating Cloud and on-prem. 2016: $3.5m

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Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Payment Features Cloud 361

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 2, 2016

Which of the 16 major start of categories in information technology will reap disproportionate share of investment dollars in 2016? This may be a breakout category in 2016 for Series A investments. Given the amount of seed investor interest, I expect many of these marketplaces to raise series A dollars in 2016.

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Startup Marketplace as a Service Social Media Advertising 108

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 24, 2024

Should software assist humans or act on their behalf? In 2016, the question was easy to answer : sell Ironman not Robocop. The next generation of software startups have a strategic question with different terminology & potentially a different conclusion.

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AI Software Engineering Benchmarks Startup 130

Tom Tunguz

JULY 28, 2016

Through the end of July in 2016, $70B worth of SaaS companies sold. First, 15 of the 22 US software acquisitions worth more than $0.5B The largest private software acquisition is Transfirst, a payment software business founded in 1995. Perhaps the fastest growing software companies aren’t interested in selling, yet.

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2023

There are several big leaders in property management software, and AppFolio is one of them. At $660m in “ARR” (a lot of that isn’t software, as we’ll see below), it’s trading at a $7.2 AppFolio is what the markets want in a software+ company, at least in 2023. Let’s dig in.

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Payment Services Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments 240

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2023

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 ! 2016: $3.5m 2016: $3.5m UIPath History 2005: Started as a tech outsourcing company 2014: $500k rev. seed round 2015: $1m rev.

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Company Culture AI Innovation Enterprise 255

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 6, 2016

The increasing focus on vertical software startups shouldn’t be surprising. Many of the most of apparent and immediate opportunities in the software market have been filled by now SaaS incumbents. Artificial intelligence is to be a big trend in the SaaS world, a theme that matured in 2016 but will very much continue through 2017.

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Tom Tunguz

MARCH 10, 2022

Both startups provide database software to developers to build applications. In 2016, each company recorded less than $50m in revenue. Both of these businesses are publicly traded. Both have grown very fast. In fact, their revenue trajectories through 2020 are nearly identical. In two years, both would near $200m in revenue.

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FastSpring

APRIL 17, 2024

Since 2016, SaaStock has helped more founders, investors, and operators connect, learn, and grow than any other SaaS conference globally. We’re also the leading merchant of record for global software companies — powering over a billion dollars in worldwide transactions every year. We’d love to talk with you in person!

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Payment Services Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 85

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 25, 2016

As the overall venture market environment evolves in 2016, so too does the SaaS and Software segment. The number of Series A, B, C, and D investments in software companies stabilized at roughly 170 per quarter from mid-2013 through mid-2015, before falling 17% in Q4 2015 to a two year low.

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SaaStr

MAY 6, 2022

Update on cloud software multiples, charted alongside the 10Y and 5 year pre-covid NTM rev multiple average. January 2016, SaaS stocks were riding high. It was called 2016: * Everyone panicked * Seemed like multiples would never recover * LinkedIn sold to Microsoft for 7x ARR. pic.twitter.com/JNnzizB82v. But it was just a panic.

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SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: The Three Valuation Lows in SaaS: 2013, 2016, and 2022 5 Interesting Learnings from Doximity at $450,000,000 in ARR Is Cold Calling Dead? Top Obstacles to Making Software Decisions with G2’s VP – Asia Pacific, Chris Perrine    4.

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Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 18, 2020

Most high-growth software investors value public companies on enterprise value to forward revenue multiple. What if we could compare the relative valuation multiples of public and private high growth software companies? What if we could compare the relative valuation multiples of public and private high growth software companies?

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Software Review Finance Enterprise Acquisition 363

SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2021

50% revenue from software (recurring), 50% from payments (not-recurring). . Half of its revenues comes from its software. Well, if it were 2016, we’d say no. And yes, it’s a software company. Fast forward to day, Merchant Solutions is a much larger share of revenue than software subscriptions.

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Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 359

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

Founded by Sanjit Biswas, former CEO at Meraki and John Bicket former CTO at Meraki[link] Samsara builds software to manage physical operations: truck fleets, mining, food & beverage, oil & gas. Founded in 2016, Samsara has grown explosively from $119.9m Incidentally, the name Samsara is the cycle of life and death in Sanskrit.

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SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2022

I don’t do a lot of predictions, but I very strongly believe enterprise software companies are going to do really well over the next 18/24 mos…. 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!

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SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2023

But importantly, it’s raised its ACV 4x since 2016. Example: quiet SaaS learning software Docebo: pic.twitter.com/jtGwErBPu6. Docebo’s pricing is on the “corporate” side of LMS. It doesn’t compete at the bottom of the market, and targets top logos with a reasonably priced product. Yes, you can.

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FastSpring

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Since 2016, SaaS North has been recognized as THE Canadian hub for rapidly-scaling SaaS founders and their teams. Head over to the registration page to grab your ticket to get access to incredible speakers, unparalleled networking opportunities and proprietary software that will maximize your experience even more!

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Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Services 135

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2023

Not easy, but easier and easier: There was a bump in 2016, a Flash Crash in SaaS, when budgets were slashed, but it didn’t last long enough to really impact renewal cycles.

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Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2022

From 2007 to 2016, $1.5b marked the upside case for most VC software and infrastructure investment memos. The silver lining: the median public software company in 2022 is three times as valuable as in 2015, which suggests valuations should settle higher than that era. Fewer than 15 SaaS companies traded on public exchanges then.

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Startup Software Investment SaaS 217

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

Jennifer has been at PagerDuty since 2016, a disruptive company that took automation to the next level before AI was hot in 2024. Everything in the industry runs on software. GenAI will make for better software, too. They just build better software,” Jason says. I haven’t seen any great companies with fewer engineers.

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Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 237

Kellblog

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

I’ll be speaking at the APPEALIE 2019 SaaS Conference and Awards in San Francisco on September 25th and I noticed that in their promotions the folks at APPEALIE had assembled their own Kellblog’s Greatest Hits album from 2016 to 2019, complete with its own cover art. It means greatest of all time.” ” Cool, indeed.

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SaaS Scale Startup Software 44

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

And they are both incredibly impressive — 118% growth at $3B run-rate and $500m in ARR in software alone may be an all-time record — but also, perhaps not SaaS? #1. With gross margins of only 21%, is Toast really a software company? Wix just has more software revenue to blend the total margins higher.

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Payment Methods Payment Solutions Payments Cloud 271

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 23, 2022

To illustrate the turbulence, consider the following metrics: The BVP NASDAQ Emerging Cloud Index (the public benchmark of software performance) has contracted by more than 40%. Cloud 100 multiples have fallen in 2022 –– ARR multiples rose nearly fourfold from 9x in 2016 to 34x in 2021 and down to 30x in 2022.

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Cloud Trends Benchmarks Business Model 238

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 28, 2021

UIPath offers software to build robots, programs that automate repetitive work. The UIPath suite includes the software to write, execute, monitor, and maintain these robots. The company also mentions the 2016 cohort of customers expanded 51x in the last 5 years. Some examples include streamlining customer onboarding.

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Payment Services Metrics Payment Solutions Payments 359

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 4, 2017

There’s no quicker way to lose a user or buyer of your software than to lose their trust. The software didn’t save my data. In both the 2008 and 2016 analyses, the math may have been correct and the theory consistent. But in 2008, the results built trust in data and in 2016, the outcome eroded it.

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Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Software Management 100

Tom Tunguz

JULY 23, 2016

Where is the budget to pay for your SaaS startup’s software coming from? Budget expansion implies the total amount of spending on software increases. JP Morgan doubled its security budget from $250M to $500M from 2015 to 2016. There are three possible pockets. Third, the company creates a new budget.

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The Angel VC

JANUARY 10, 2017

In less earth shattering news, the fact that it's 2017 also means that my "SaaS Funding in 2016" napkin needs an update. As a reminder, in the original post I tried to give a "back of a napkin" answer to this question: What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2016?

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 15, 2022

This week in enterprise software: Top 10 #SaaS #Cloud multiples as of today's market close. The median multiple fell below 5x at market close for the first time since 2016 (when it briefly fell below 5x) pic.twitter.com/QZ605lMswz. That’s massive change. — Jamin Ball (@jaminball) October 14, 2022.

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Startup Cloud Growth Marketing SaaS 245

Tom Tunguz

MAY 1, 2016

Are buyers purchasing less software? The chart above depicts revenue surprise for a basket of publicly traded consumer and software companies. Consumer companies are red and software companies are blue. Venture financing has slowed by upwards of 15% in the first quarter. Q1 GDP growth fell to 0.5%

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Andreessen Horowitz

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

exhibit college graduate-level smarts, follow some rules, send programmatic instructions to third-party software systems to take an action, and help provide empathetic, patient guidance to someone who is likely feeling stressed and confused due to uncertainty about a health issue.

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Artificial Intelligence Healthcare Marketplace as a Service Systems Review 125

Sales Hacker

MARCH 12, 2024

He previously co-founded the cloud data pipeline company Stitch (acquired by Talend in 2018) and business intelligence platform RJMetrics (acquired by Adobe by way of Magento Commerce in 2016). Prior to RJMetrics, Bob worked on the Investment Team of Insight Partners. He guest lectures regularly at Princeton University and The Wharton School.

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Cloud Trends Startup Pricing 97

FastSpring

DECEMBER 20, 2023

16, 2016 to Sept. Related reading: News: Potential Apple App Store Policy Changes Due to EU’s Digital Markets Act (November 2023) What the Epic Games vs. Apple Injunction Means for Software Companies (October 2021) The post News: Terms of Play Store Settlement Between US States and Google Revealed appeared first on FastSpring.

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Software Review Government Development Software 109

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2020

A massive amount of IT spend has not just moved to SaaS over the past decade, but almost as importantly, the % spent on business software by IT has also gone up. This will be the start of the end of the sweetheart run for SaaS from 2015–2016 through today. “No No code” enables much better software. “No But this can’t last.

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SaaS Engineering Software Revenue 189

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2020

“Salesforce’s IPO is also seen as a test of a new business model that could shake up the software industry. The company is the poster child for subscription-based software, a model that’s gaining popularity among corporate buyers. In 2016, Digital Ocean opened a $130m credit facility with Keybanc. .

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Venture Capital Technical Review SaaS Banking 221