SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

It’s now falling to 150 because 81% percent of the dollars invested in venture capital at the height of the boom came from non-traditional venture capital firms which are all very likely to leave investing. The post The State of SaaS Go-to-Market with Theory Ventures General Partner Tomasz Tunguz appeared first on SaaStr.

Venture Capital

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2024

Private Equity Gets Very Interested in SaaS Once You Cross $20m ARR, growing 30% — if you are burning almost nothing. 3 Came from the Investment Bank They Hired. In my experience, hiring an investment bank to help you in any acquisition > $100m or so is critical. That’s my view and Andy confirmed.

Sales Hiring

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2025

Dear SaaStr: Which SaaS Products Offer ONLY Annual Pricing? Many of the companies Ive invested in only offer annual pricing. The post Dear SaaStr: Which SaaS Products Offer ONLY Annual Pricing? The common denominator is: they are products that require some real business process change to achieve the value from the product.

Pricing

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2025

The Great Spending Showdown: AI vs SaaS in 2025/2026 — What Every B2B Leader Needs to Know We’re witnessing the most dramatic shift in enterprise tech spending since the cloud migration began 15 years ago. Meanwhile, SaaS — our tried-and-true darling — is projected at $295 billion with a “mere” 18.4% year-over-year.

AI Search

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2024

SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin chats with Mangomint CEO Daniel Lang about why vertical SaaS is booming and how Mangomint got to 110% NRR. What was once considered too small or too niche, vertical SaaS has recently emerged as a hotbed of innovation and profitability. Full-Stack SaaS for SMBs Toast today is worth $14B at $1.5B

SaaS Payments

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Big Should The Addressable Market Be to Go into Vertical SaaS? I try to look at two things in Vertical SaaS startups, at least when investing : Will everyone in the vertical / industry use it? It’s just hard to get most vertical SaaS start-ups to scale if they can’t get to a $10k ACV.

Payment Solutions

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2024

of SaaS VC investments are in the SF Bay. Of the last 3 SaaS IPOs, only 1 was HQ’d in the Bay Area (Rubrik). of All SaaS VC Funding is in the Bay Area Now appeared first on SaaStr. For the average SDR or AE? Maybe less so. Carta shows for VC overall, 35.0% Klaviyo and OneStream aren’t.

SaaS

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2025

SaaS / B2B Public Stock Performance 1H’25: Top Winners & Losers 📊 Market Summary: SaaS Sector in 1H’25 The SaaS sector experienced a dramatic bifurcation in the first half of 2025, with clear winners and losers emerging based on AI differentiation, security positioning, and vertical specialization.

AI

SaaStr

JANUARY 1, 2025

2025 should be a good year for almost all leading public SaaS companies: 1 Overall, any downturn ended in Q324, if there was one at all in their segment. 2 Most SaaS leaders are now in market with an AI offering, and even if early and minor, its leading to a boost because there is incremental budget there. See Salesforce, Asana, etc.

Sales Hiring

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2025

We’re living through the biggest transformation in B2B sales since the birth of SaaS itself. The latest from 2025 survey data by ICONIQ from 205 GTM executives across leading B2B SaaS companies The data tells a stark story. Here are the 10 most critical findings every SaaS leader needs to understand: 1.

Scale

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2025

Each leader started by sharing their unique perspective on how they approached adding AI into their SaaS products: How GitHub Built an AI Copilot to 1.8M ” How Ramp Reached $300M in 3 years and Uses AI to Save 25,000 Customers a Billion Dollars Ramp’s VP of Design Diego Zaks has a different take on AI in SaaS.

AI Search

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

So the latest SaaS leader to cross $1B ARR is Klaviyo. It was the only SaaS IPO on 2023. But it’s clear that it’s still in the investing phase, and increasing spend in sales & marketing. Klaviyo dominates marketing in the Shopify ecosystem and in ecommerce, and just keeps on scaling. The only one!

Scale

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2025

They achieved BOTH by: Maintaining 20%+ growth rates Improving operational efficiency Focusing on high-margin products The SaaStr Takeaway : The best SaaS companies don’t choose between growth and profitability. Why This Matters: Share buybacks at high-growth SaaS companies send a powerful signal: Cash generation confidence ($105.9M

Scale

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Former Head of Revenue at BILL and HubSpot Americas leader Michelle Benfer recently joined us on a SaaStr Workshop Wednesday share her insights on one of the most critical roles in any SaaS organization: the frontline sales manager. “At HubSpot, I had over 100 frontline sales managers reporting to me. ” The bottom line?

Sales Hiring

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2025

When SaaStr Fund made the first investment in RevenueCat back in 2018, nobody could have predicted that this “simple API for managing in-app subscriptions” would become the infrastructure powering 33% of all mobile subscription apps and reach a $500M valuation in 2025. The SaaStr Fund Thesis: Mobile Subscriptions Will Explode.

Payments

SaaStr

JULY 23, 2025

Managing revenue operations (RevOps) in a SaaS company is all about aligning sales, marketing, and customer success to drive growth efficiently. Invest in Automation and Efficiency Automate as much of the sales, billing, and collections process as possible. Focus on Net Revenue Retention (NRR) NRR is the most important metric in SaaS.

Sales Hiring

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2025

IBM’s $7B Bet on Vertical AI and What It Means for SaaS Founders. For SaaS founders, the opportunity lies in building specialized solutions that leverage foundation models while adding unique domain expertise and data advantages. With IBM’s WatsonX platform and the emerging vertical AI ecosystem, the tools are there.

AI

SaaStr

DECEMBER 17, 2024

So SaaS is back. Top SaaS stocks are on fire the past few months, and the SaaS downturn in B2B2B appears to be behind us. It’s 2021 but all over again, and different But in SaaS overall, the growth playbook hasn’t totally worked out on the last 4 SaaS IPOs. A related post here: Is SaaS Back? (TL;DR:

SaaS

SaaStr

AUGUST 4, 2025

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 10 Metrics to Track Sales Velocity and Adoption of Our SaaS? Why Lead Velocity Rate (LVR) Is The Most Important Metric in SaaS 2. A shorter payback period means you’re recovering your investment faster, which is critical for scaling efficiently. Here are the key ones: 1.

Scale

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

We’re obviously written up a lot about Fundraising and Investing here on SaaStr.com, but time and time again, SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin has seen so many Founders sign a bad term sheet based on gut instinct, VC celebrity or vibes, and while that may be fine, it’s not enough.

Venture Capital

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2025

Global Expansion : With customers spanning 135+ countries and continued international investment, HubSpot has successfully created a global business with significant growth opportunities (their TAM is $76B in 2024, growing to $128B by 2029, with <10% penetration across all products). Its not either / or. Or at least, it doesnt have to be.

SMB

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

But I’ve yet to work with a SaaS company that can’t improve. I see too few SaaS start-up and scale-ups truly segment churn. I see many SaaS start-ups with mediocre retention with … mediocre NPS (20-30). But I’d say 90% of SaaS companies I work with and have invested in don’t get these basics right for a long, long time.

Churn

SaaStr

AUGUST 3, 2025

Early on, you’re investing heavily in ensuring customers are successful, driving adoption, and reducing churn. This is the stage where happy customers are your best marketing and retention tool, so over-investing here makes sense. enterprise customers) will require more investment.

Customer Success

FastSpring

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Here are the questions we sought to answer by analyzing anonymized subscription data for transactions across various Asian countries (excluding broader “APAC” regions like Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia): How do customers in Asia’s growing markets prefer to manage their SaaS subscriptions? or EU, or are they different?

Merchant Services

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2025

SaaS Capital just dropped their 14th annual survey analyzing growth rates across 1,000+ private B2B SaaS companies. Remember when everyone was throwing money at anything with “SaaS” in the name? Know where you stand relative to your actual peer group, not the entire SaaS universe.

B2B

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2025

The Hard Truth About SaaS Revenue Durability: Why 80% of Post-IPO Companies Don’t Compound in Value Bottom Line Up Front: The math on SaaS investing is … tough. The 2021 Hangover: When Good Bets Go Bad The SaaS investment landscape of 2021 feels like a different universe. The challenge?

Revenue

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Her company specializes in API integration platforms that enable SaaS companies to launch integrations faster and automate complex business processes. Their platform helps restaurant owners, who typically earn less than $50,000 annually in profit, create professional online presences without significant investment in time or resources.

AI

SaaStr

JULY 26, 2025

A deep dive into one of SaaS’s most dramatic NRR transformations and what it teaches us about scaling retention in the SMB/mid-market When HubSpot filed for their IPO in August 2014, their S-1 revealed a sobering metric that would have made many investors pause: an 88.6% 70% NRR — far below the 100%+ target for healthy SaaS companies.

Retention

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2025

So Circle is the latest tech IPO and it’s not really B2B or SaaS per se — it’s a fintech that issues and manages “stablecoins” Cypto that converts 1:1 to U.S. ✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) June 5, 2025 5 Interesting Learnings for B2B and SaaS Founders from Circle’s IPO: 1. The culprit?

compliance

SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2024

So theres a theme Ive been working on with all the SMB-focused founders I work with and have invested in: # 1. The Goal for SMB SaaS is 100%+ NRR. And this is the similar journey I see with many SMB SaaS start-ups. We recently did a deep dive with the CEO of MangoMint, SaaS for spas and salons that SaaStr Fund is an investor in.

Churn

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2025

Why It Matters : This is forcing LPs to completely rethink their investment strategies and cash flow planning. Defense Tech Has Quietly Become a Major VC Category The Surprise : Defense tech VC investment jumped 2x in 2023 and stayed at that level in 2024 , with 15 active unicorns now valued at $50B collectively.

Outsourcing Services

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2025

Their unwavering commitment to our community speaks volumes about their dedication to supporting SaaS growth and innovation. Their return demonstrates their continued investment in the SaaS ecosystem and commitment to helping founders succeed. SaaStrAnnual2026 #SaaStrAI #SaaS #Sponsors #DuploCloud #Pylon

Cloud

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2025

It’s live on SaaStr.com itself and you can also access it here and talk to AI Jason about any of 1000s and 1000s of B2B, sales, SaaS, VC, etc. Its practical and relatable for SaaS founders struggling with scaling their sales teams. “Growth and Burn Rates at $1M ARR for 20+ Fast-Growing SaaS Companies.”

Sales Hiring

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

The 40% Tipping Point : With 40% of workloads now in the cloud, SaaS has hit market maturity. AI is Eating SaaS Budgets : Companies like Cursor are generating massive revenue by replacing traditional SaaS workflows entirely. The SaaS slowdown isn’t happening in isolation. This probably isn’t a temporary blip.

AI

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2024

So it’s been a sloooow time in SaaS IPOs since the boom times ended in December 2021. There have been just 3 SaaS IPOs since December 2021: Klaviyo OneStream Rubrik And all were strong ones, at $500m+ ARR or so, growing ~50% or so. The clock in the end ticks on liquidity, and the most for Private Equity-backed SaaS players.

AI

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2025

B2B SaaS founders tend to share a lot of common concerns, especially as they navigate the different stages of growth. It’s often the only way to scale meaningfully in SaaS. Investing in customer success early can make a huge difference here. Founder Fatigue: Building a SaaS company is a marathon, not a sprint.

Scale

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2025

Prior to Datadog, Alex held leadership positions at several high-growth SaaS companies and has a proven track record of building marketing engines that deliver consistent, measurable growth. Follow the Pilot-Repeat-Enlarge Methodology Pilot : Start small with minimal investment. Negotiate with vendors for smaller initial commitments.

Scale