SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2025

We are proud that the 2018-2024 SaaStr Annuals have featured over 50% women and multicultural speakers at each event. SaaStr is committed to having the most inclusive community in Cloud, SaaS and AI.

Venture Capital 232

Venture Capital Travel Cloud AI 232

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 18, 2020

It hovers around 5x until 2018, then spikes to 8x, and despite some volatility, reaches its current zenith at a bit more than 10x. In 2017 and 2018, the median high-growth private company raised at a higher forward ARR multiple than in the public markets. The valuation multiple has doubled in about two years. This is a critical shift.

Software Review 363

Software Review Finance Enterprise Acquisition 363

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 23, 2024

Before 2018, only one company IPOed with more than $200m in revenue. If we divide the data set into two eras : before 2018 & 2018 onwards, we see a clear shift in the average revenue at IPO & the difference is statistically significant with a p value of 0.0063. In fact, the median revenue at IPO at $90m.

Revenue 308

Revenue Finance Trends Startup 308

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2025

The marketing site looked like a flashback to 2018. They cancelled their Free edition a few months back — an even worse sign of a vendor in trouble. There was no support link. Bad vibes up and down. And then — with no notice, they dropped a feature bomb so perfect it erases years of frustration overnight.

Social Media 179

Social Media Outsourced Development Interviewing Retention 179

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

In 2018, most Datadog customers used 1 product. 28% of Datadog’s customers use 4+ products, but they make up the vast majority of revenue: And 75% use 2 or more products, up from just 15% in 2018: #4. More product, more products, more products. 10 new products this year. Customers don’t buy all the products at first.

Scale 362

Scale Cloud Enterprise Scaling 362

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2022

The Bear Case: Multiples are still elevated compared to the pre-2018 period. So they can fall another 20%-30% just to revert back to that mean: SaaS was already on a tear starting in 2018. The argument here is that SaaS even in 2018 was overvalued. You can see a lot of VCs and others talking about this on Twitter.

SaaS 348

SaaS Azure Cloud AWS 348

SaaStr

MARCH 11, 2022

And so, Cloud multiples have rationally fallen back to where they were in 2018 and 2019. The argument here is multiples have fallen too far, since the best SaaS and Cloud companies are growing so, so much faster than in 2018 and 2019. Multiples exploded when we all lived in the Cloud, quarantined in whole or in part in the Cloud.

Scale 329

Scale SaaS Cloud Pricing 329

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2022

jasonlk) January 18, 2018. #3: jasonlk) September 21, 2018. #4: jasonlk) February 25, 2018. #5: jasonlk) February 25, 2018. #6: jasonlk) September 6, 2018. #7: jasonlk) January 14, 2018. #9: jasonlk) October 3, 2018. . — Jason BeKind Lemkin #???????????? Remind me the other rules again.

Startup 278

Startup Scaling 278

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2020

Smartsheet went public in 2018. Let me know which you prefer. SmartSheet. TTM Revenue, $M. Revenue Growth. Gross Margin. Net Income Margin. -48%. Cash Flow Margin. -44%. Since its IPO, Smartsheet has increased its market cap 2.6x today, which is a favorable omen for Asana.

Payment Solutions 363

Payment Solutions Payments Outsourced Development Payment Services 363

SaaStr

APRIL 29, 2021

Shopify’s first quarter revenue: Q1 2021: $989 million Q1 2020: $470 million Q1 2019: $321 million Q1 2018: $214 million Q1 2017: $127 million Q1 2016: $73 million Q1 2015: $37 million Q1 2014: $19 million Q1 2013: $9 million. NRR of 110%+ since 2018 — sort of. — Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) April 28, 2021.

Merchant Services 316

Merchant Services Payment Methods SaaS Payments Payments 316

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2021

While Sprout Social has “only” added 13% new customers each year since 2018, those customers even with 110% NRR compound, leading to 32% ARR Growth. In 2018, even at $75m in ARR, Sprout Social only had 868 $10k+ customers. A reminder of the incredible power of NRR of 110% over say 100%.

Social Media 328

Social Media SMB Cloud Scale 328

The Daily Egg

JULY 23, 2022

Since Paychex acquired Oasis Outsourcing in 2018, Oasis PEO is now a part of the Paychex brand. Currently, the Oasis professional employer. The post Oasis PEO Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Branding 310

Branding 310

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 27, 2022

Early businesses tend to create more instruments to hire, grow, and incentivize. tokens resemble equity in most ways, but possess one additional function: they can be used to pay for service. Trailing 2 Year Inflation Rate. Founded Year.

Startup 320

Startup Sales Hiring Government Outsourced Development 320

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

From $1B Valuation in 2018 to $20B+ Today. But remember it hit a $1B valuation just in 2018. 300 Employees Working on AI Not a surprise, but interesting to see the scale of investment here. #5. Even With Today’s Multiples. In a world where unicorns are struggling, Canva isn’t one of them.

AWS 312

AWS B2C Scaling AI 312

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2021

Cloud has been on an incredible tear since 2012 or so, and then even more since about 2016, and then as you can see above, went into hyperdive in about 2018 … and then into true warp speed after Covid. But does it even matter? SaaS and Cloud are up +1000% since 2013. That’s better than almost any venture fund.

Cloud 325

Cloud SaaS Trends Metrics 325

Tom Tunguz

JULY 18, 2022

In 2018 at Saastr, Jason Lemkin & I talked about private equity becoming an increasingly aggressive buyer of venture-backed software companies. Last year, private equity firms inhaled $29 billion dollars’ worth of startups - a twenty-year record and 50% more than the previous peak.

Startup 356

Startup Retention Pricing Software 356

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 12, 2021

This chart shows the median and the 75th percentile of enterprise value/forward revenue multiple for the basket of public stocks which were public at that moment in time. Correction Year. These corrections reduced valuations by between 30% and 60%. These undulations are short-lived.

SaaS 361

SaaS Cloud Enterprise Software 361

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2020

And again, Dec 31, 2018 and Dec 31, 2019. And again in 2018. A Bad Day: When I Had No Salary And Didn’t Get My Requested $10k Bonus Even Though I Brought In an Extra $300k All-Cash Upfront Deal. A Good Day: Dec 31, 2009; Dec 31, 2010; Dec 31, 2011; Dec 31, 2012. When we killed it every year on the last day of the year.

Sales Hiring 357

Sales Hiring SaaS Revenue Churn 357

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

Raising a Series A is as hard as it’s been since 2018 is the answer. Not at all: Per there data, there is some modest pick-up at Series B and C , but that’s less relevant to most founders. What’s most important is after a seed round … how hard is it to raise another round? This just makes sense.

AI 348

AI Pricing Investment Data 348

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2023

In 2024, I expect most of these figures to revert to the mean - not the peaks of 2020-2021, but more akin to 2018. In almost every category, the time between rounds is also at decade highs. The public valuation environment & pace of venture capital investments mirror those years better than others.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Investment Software 319

SaaStr

OCTOBER 15, 2022

You can see that fast and steep drop-off from the Q4’21 peak here: It looks particularly dramatic when you zoom into just late 2021 and 2022: But second, really, in many ways it seems like we’re just back to 2018-early 2020 in venture. Let’s look at 2018-202 0. Back to before the Covid Crazies in venture.

Startup 279

Startup Cloud Growth Marketing Enterprise 279

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2024

Now this isn’t new in venture, but 2017-2018 actually were pretty good times to invest. That gets you to 3x after fees to the VC’s own investors. That’s what it takes to beat Nasdaq materially. So the media fund isn’t close to hitting its goal. And there is still time.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Investment Data 312

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 9, 2020

We see pre-seeds have fallen from mid-2018 highs of $10m to about $5m. Second, round sizes are down about 20-30% from highs in the pre-seed and seed market. Series As’s ascent continues unperturbed. Last, the Angellist team provided data on pre-money valuations, which is rare data! Seeds persist at $10m pre-money.

Data 342

Data Marketing Startup Investment 342

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

So Carta put out some recent data I found very useful on how many startups raise another round, and how many sort of quietly wind down, in the first 5 years or so after being founded (from 2018 to early 2024): Almost none IPO’d in the first 5 years, but that just makes sense.

Pricing 334

Pricing Acquisition Startup Education 334

SaaStr

MARCH 21, 2023

It’s just they sort of have reverted to in many cases as hard as they were around, say, 2018. Folks are still struggling to get used to it. It’s not so much that things are a lot harder now. A lot of folks just don’t want to work hard anymore.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital SaaS Startup Marketing 347

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2022

2018: 68 attendees at SaaStr Miami Meet-Up. #2. In 2018, it seems like everyone at our meet-up was either sub-$1m ARR … or had driven or flown in. 2019: 184 attendees at SaaStr Miami Meet-Up. More importantly, the attendee quality has gone way, way up over the years. There just weren’t that many in Miami even in 2019.

Technical Review 298

Technical Review B2B SaaS Engagement 298

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

We’re proud to have > 60% women and multicultural speakers at the 2019 and 2018 SaaStr Annuals, and we are on track to meet or exceed that again in 2020. Our 2019 and 2018 attendee Diversity and Inclusion programs were fully subscribed and worked well, so we want to go even bigger this year on a number of levels.

Leadership 52

Leadership 52

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2022

HubSpot is now on its way to $2B in ARR, but Dharmesh looks back on how they went from startup to scale-up: 2018: Dharmesh came back for the 5th Annual with Chief People office Katie to do a deep dive on how to drive up employee retention, and create values that endure.

CTO 316

CTO Retention Startup Scaling 316

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 1, 2024

Top quartile companies in 2024 grow at the same rates as bottom quartile companies in 2018. Each of these percentiles is now meaningfully lower than the average over the past decade. Future revenue ramps have been the dominant driver of software valuations for the vast majority of the last decade. When they fall, valuations compress.

Software 317

Software Marketing Revenue Business 317

The Daily Egg

APRIL 24, 2019

As of 2018, the average eCommerce website — both globally and in the US — converted less than four percent of its visitors. eCommerce vendors who aren’t actively improving their landing pages to convert more visitors are almost certainly leaving money on the table.

55

55

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Those multiples went up in 2018 and 2019, and things were Better. But I think a lot of us are betting on a return at least to 2018-2019 multiples. The reality is, as you can see in the above BVP chart, the Median public SaaS company — a pretty high bar right there — has traded around 6x ARR. To a 8x-10x world.

Cloud 288

Cloud Trends Scale Startup 288

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2022

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! pic.twitter.com/CMhrBXgHSF. — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) May 31, 2022. We may be headed for a big downturn, we’ll see.

Sales Hiring 347

Sales Hiring Acquisition Cloud Enterprise 347

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2023

We are proud that the 2022 SaaStr Annual featured a combined 60% women and multicultural speakers and have had over 60% women and multicultural speakers at each SaaStr Annual since 2018, and we hope to do even better in 2023! Our core goals and values at SaaStr include: Putting on the most inclusive events in the industry and.

Travel 339

Travel Innovation B2B Revenue 339

The Daily Egg

JANUARY 31, 2019

February 2, 2018: I shared this post on LinkedIn: I’d started a new job, lucked into the opportunity to advise two founders and companies I think highly of, and committed to pushing forward on a passion project of mine that had stalled for 10 years (kids books about social and environmental issues).

269

269

SaaStr

AUGUST 22, 2021

Top tier SaaS companies are valued at 34x ARR today, up from a pretty consistent 10x or so through 2018. Valuations are at an all-time high — but you have to bring the growth. That’s incredible multiple expansion. But only the best SaaS and Cloud get these multiples. M&A isn’t keeping up, at least not yet.

Cloud 336

Cloud Scale SaaS Acquisition 336

Tom Tunguz

JULY 14, 2021

Next, she took the helm at NIO, a manufacturer of automonous vehicles that went public in 2018. Formerly the CTO at Motorola, she left to co-lead Cisco’s engineering organization worldwide. She serves on the boards of Microsoft and Spotify.

CTO 291

CTO Startup Engineering 291

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

HubSpot for example, which has been very judicious on holding the line on pricing and ACVs, raised prices 12% for the first time since 2018 — albeit only on new customers: Slack also similarly did its first pricing increase in history recently, of about 10%: Prices are going up in SaaS.

Pricing 316

Pricing Startup SaaS 316