SaaStr

MARCH 28, 2023

SVB failing was a stunning moment in the history of startups. The bank startups had used for decades. A week ago this morning, our bank balances still read as follows: pic.twitter.com/h4kTDaDFeb — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) March 19, 2023 So … where did startups that took out their cash put it?

Startup 243

Startup Banking Finance Consulting 243

Baremetrics

MAY 7, 2019

There are more funding and financing options for startups today than there ever have been before. There’s also been an explosion in debate and transparency about navigating startup funding and financing. Let’s explore the funding and financing options for your startup. Funding Your Startup.

Finance 111

Finance Startup SaaS Payments Payment Methods 111

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 3, 2022

There’s a prevailing narrative that the health of the Bay Area startup ecosystem faces challenges. San Francisco’s share of startup rounds by count has fallen from its perch ten years ago. In 2021, San Francisco Bay Area startups raised $126b. In 2019, US startups raised $126.4b.

Startup 236

Startup Finance Investment Marketing 236

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 14, 2022

As the Fed raises rates in the next few quarters, will startups borrow less? We’ve established that interest rates are uncorrelated to startup financing over the last twenty years. The more expensive debt, the less of it startups seek. Apparently, old fallacies never die.”. Is this true in venture capital?

Startup 245

Startup Venture Capital Finance Pricing 245

Baremetrics

APRIL 21, 2021

In this article, we shall get back to basics: What is SaaS finance, and what financial phases can you expect your business to go through? When it comes to understanding finance for SaaS companies, there are key differences between more traditional financial models and SaaS-specific financial modeling and forecasting. Startup Phase 2.

Finance 98

Finance Scale SaaS Forecasting 98

SaaStr

AUGUST 1, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Leave a Startup When I’m an Integral Co-founder? Don’t pretend for the next round of financing. time to go image from here ) The post Dear SaaStr: How Do I Leave a Startup When I’m an Integral Co-founder? Either find a smaller role in the company, and still be supportive. Do that if you can.

Startup 197

Startup Finance 197

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 17, 2021

From time to time, I chart the fastest growing categories of startup investment in the US for seed through Series C. I analyzed Crunchbase data and looked for the startup categories that grew fastest in terms of funding rounds year-over-year, provided there were at least 10 rounds in that category.

Startup 349

Startup Software Engineering Finance Engineering 349

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Is your startup really worth millions today? The post 5 Things To Be Wary of In VC Financings appeared first on SaaStr. Even these days, in The Best of Times for SaaS, many founders are wary of Venture Capital. Aren’t they just trying to buy shares too cheaply? Well, yes, sometimes. And be honest. Probably not.

Finance 271

Finance Venture Capital Consulting Investment 271

Baremetrics

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Equity financing is a method of capital raising via the selling of stock. While the phrase "equity financing" is often used to refer to the funding of publicly traded businesses, the term is also applied to private company financing. What is Equity Financing in SaaS? Equity Financing 2. Debt Financing (Loan) 3.

Finance 98

Finance Venture Capital SaaS Payments Payments 98

Andreessen Horowitz

JULY 27, 2023

Seventy-seven percent of Americans report feeling financially stressed , making consumer personal finance an attractive market for new builders.

Finance 95

Finance AI Startup Generative AI 95

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2022

Can you imagine a site reliability engineer managing 15 to 20 tokens, coordinating with finance teams to ensure proper treasury management, while ensuring high uptime? How this quandary resolves will determine the most attractive places to build new infrastructure startups. It’s too much complexity for a simple static blog.

Payment Solutions 241

Payment Solutions GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup Payment Features 241

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2021

Q: How do startups with 3 founders often structure the Board of Directors to prepare for a Series A financing? The post Dear SaaStr: How Do Startups with 3 Founders Structure Their Board of Directors? Most traditional VCs will prefer 2 “Common” seats after the Series A. 3 would be atypical. appeared first on SaaStr.

Startup 262

Startup Finance 262

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2023

Startups are solving the world’s important challenges with agility, innovative technology, and determination. So whether you’re starting out, building your startup, or scaling up to meet the needs of consumers, business, and society, we connect you with the right people, products, and best practices to help you thrive and grow.

Cloud 193

Cloud Scale Startup Sales Hiring 193

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 27, 2021

Ten years ago, startups pulled capital from the capital markets. A startup raised money, executed for 12-24 months then sought more capital on Sand Hill, flaunting milestones to justify a higher valuation. First, these financings establish a company’s value on a near-quarterly basis. I call these mark-to-market rounds.

Startup 236

Startup Strategy Marketing Entertainment 236

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

Dear SaaStr: How Do Startups Really Sell to Big Enterprises Before They’re Proven? If your solution solves a procurement or sales or finance or HR or whatever headache, and you hit the buyer at the right time, you can get a meeting. You solve their problems. Solving certain top headaches. And often a sale. Is this hard?

Enterprise 237

Enterprise Startup Scale Innovation 237

Baremetrics

NOVEMBER 21, 2021

Bookkeeping, accounting, and finance management are all critical to the financial success of your business. All the data your startup needs Get deep insights into your company's MRR, churn and other vital metrics for your SaaS business. Controller, CFO, and finance What is a controller? What is finance? Table of Contents.

Finance 98

Finance Payment Services Payment Features Forecasting 98

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

… 10 Rules to Being a VP of Sales in a Startup. It isn’t going to work in a startup. I went to a startup once where the prior VP of Sales had 13 opportunity stages with an average deal size of 6K. In a startup, million dollar deals are few and far between. Literally 100% failure rate. Let go of what you know.

Sales Hiring 283

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 283

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Dear SaaStr: The Startup I’m Working At is Getting Acquired. Often, G&A (finance, legal, etc.) The post Dear SaaStr: The Startup I’m Working At is Getting Acquired. How Much Can I Negotiate? Unfortunately, as a non-CEO, non-founder of an acquired start-up … you have almost no ability to really negotiate.

Startup 208

Startup Sales Hiring Compensation Finance 208

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 21, 2022

Lee headed finance for the company from $15m in ARR to more than $1b. In addition, Lee shared his view on usage-based pricing and defending a startup’s great asset, talent, from poaching during the next recovery. During the Office Hours, we talked about startups repricing their equity with new 409a valuations.

Startup 147

Startup Outsourced Development Sales Hiring Compensation 147

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Recently, Redpoint Office Hours welcomed Allison Pickens to clarify the COO role and when startups should consider recruiting one. Whereas a decade ago, a board might have hired a professional CEO to scale the operations of a startup, today, more boards seek COOs. Regardless of the reasons, more startups are looking to hire a COO.

Sales Recruiting 190

Sales Recruiting Startup Scale Sales Hiring 190

SaaStr

MARCH 4, 2024

Adding another $5m, $10m, heck sometimes $50m into a startup via SAFEs to either punt on valuation issues or to extent runway can seem like a simple solution. Non-Dilutive Financing and Venture Debt Do Have Their Place, But They Have Their Risks, Too. That’s a great use of revenue financing and venture debt.

Finance 206

Finance Payment Solutions Payments Pricing 206

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 20, 2023

The red is a linear model based on data from 2010 to 2018 that predicts activity rates for each financing series of US & Canadian software companies. [1] By building a linear model we can hazard a guess of when that might be. The blue line shows actual Seed, A, & B activity by quarter.

Investment 176

Investment Venture Capital Startup Finance 176

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 18, 2022

The question on every software founder’s mind today must be, how will this affect the private financing markets? Public market investors are rotating out of high growth technology companies as the Fed’s policies of quantitative easing, asset purchases, and low rates abate.

Marketing 362

Marketing Startup Finance Technology 362

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 15, 2022

Raising debt is an important financial tool for startups, and in particular, as more and more companies become fintech companies , debt, and in particular asset-backed debt, can provide a critical vehicle for embedding financial products that can be financed … The post 16 Things to Know About Raising Debt for Startups appeared first on Andreessen (..)

Startup 131

Startup Finance 131

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

If you’ve not been tracking this, here a list of next-generation planning startups … Since that post, I’ve received feedback with several more startups to add to the list and a request for a little more color on each one. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel financing and has over 30 employees.

Finance 86

Finance Forecasting Software Review Systems Review 86

Tom Tunguz

MAY 10, 2015

The rate at which startups are raising follow-on rounds is decreasing, and has decreased steadily from 2003 through 2013. Between 2003 and 2006, post-Series A startups raised series Bs about 57% of the time. Ultimately, this data implies that there is plenty of Series A capital available for startups. standard series A.

Finance 100

Finance Startup Trends Data 100

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2020

Q: Is having multiple investors back a startup in the first round a good thing? They will lead a “bridge” financing if you struggling but doing well enough to perhaps earn a little more money from the existing investors. The post Is having multiple investors back a startup in the first round a good thing? Just be aware of it.

Startup 219

Startup Finance Metrics 219

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 20, 2024

General & administrative should see productivity gains across legal & finance. That’s an unfair comparison since Google has focused on classic query cost optimization for more than 20 years. But let’s disregard that. AI is also a deflationary force & a mighty one at that. Klarna slashed their CS spend by 66% with AI.

AI Search 174

AI Search AI Scale SaaS 174

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2022

A funny thing happened along the way to Sand Hill Road in the last decade : startups stopped talking about how much runway a Series A would buy them. As the pendulum swings to a higher-cost-of-capital-environment, milestone-based financing may return. Capital scarcity curtails startup operation. Let me explain : Era.

Headcount 284

Headcount Venture Capital Finance Startup 284

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2019

More money enables startups to achieve greater milestones before raising the next round. The sample size is on the smaller side; there are companies who raise Series Bs at less ARR than the median A for other factors; this analysis ignores space, competitive dynamics, team composition and auction pressure of financings.

Benchmarks 237

Benchmarks Startup SaaS Data Analysis 237

Tom Tunguz

JULY 25, 2021

A few years ago, when a startup raised a Series A or Series B, founders would bolster the round with venture debt: a term loan and/or a revolving credit line. In the later stages, debt is often used to finance acquisitions, and perhaps this is occurring more for venture backed companies. Why has venture debt shifted later?

Finance 332

Finance Startup Acquisition SaaS 332

Chart Mogul

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

What are the best options for financing based on the stage of the company? What are the best options for financing based on the stage of the company? We speak about current drivers and tendencies in funding and fundraising, revenue-based financing, and the metrics that distinguish the fastest-growing companies.

Finance 52

Finance Payments Revenue Retention 52

Tom Tunguz

JULY 22, 2018

Many founders have aspired to “skip” a round of financing. The truth is - in today’s market - the median startup is doing that already. In 2009, the median post Series C startup counted $20.8M In 2018, a post-Series B startup would have received $26.7M in investment - skipping a round of financing.

Startup 142

Startup Finance Marketing Trends 142

SaaStr

AUGUST 14, 2023

The traditional practice is that VC funds have the startup pay both their fees and the VC’s legal fees in the financing. In a truly tiny financing (<$500k-$1m) or SAFE notes and the like, however, any investor-side legal fees are often just paid by the investors. It doesn’t matter in the end. Not always but often.

Finance 188

Finance Banking Startup Investment 188

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

We were coming off an environment where startup funding was as fruitful as ever. For smaller companies, go after the founders because they likely won’t have finance people yet. For Mid-Market companies, you might connect with people in finance or accounting. In a startup today, everyone’s important.

Sales Hiring 236

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 236

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2022

For whatever reason, the company is ready to exit startup status and prepare to scale-up. Dave Kellogg, Executive-In-Residence at Balderton Capital, breaks down the most common mistakes companies make when going from startup to scale-up. Hire according to empirical indicators, not the financing plan.

Scale 179

Scale Technical Advisors Sales Hiring Technical Review 179