Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2023

The company raised $455m in venture capital, but has used only $15m, growing nearly entirely on profits. Metric at IPO KVYO BRZE Primary Motion PLG SLG Revenue Growth 54% 52% Revenue, $m 585 185 Gross Margin 77% 72% ACV, $k 4.5 Braze targets enterprise buyers with a sales-led motion. Est. Sales Efficiency 1.04

Benchmarks 158

Benchmarks Venture Capital Marketing SMB 158

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 12, 2024

Every type of investor was broadly operating in a “risk on” mindset given the ZIRP environment, and the venture capital ecosystem was no exception. I hope this post provides a bit of a cautionary tale of raising a mega round ahead of your metrics. 2025 is probably the year of max pain in the venture ecosystem.

Cloud 284

Cloud Venture Capital Acquisition Metrics 284

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2023

One, when you have really high gross margins, your cost base actually increases much slower than your revenue base. Revenue growth is the Rule of 40 and you want that number to be above 40% generally. If you need to raise venture capital, preparation is important, both in terms of process and in terms of expectation alignment.

SaaS Payments 196

SaaS Payments Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 196

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2022

The number of global venture capital (VC) investments dipped in 2022, thanks to ongoing geopolitical tensions, turbulence in global capital markets, supply chain issues, and increasing interest rates. Venture capital firms pumped a lot of money into the economy during the pandemic, buying countless software companies.

Venture Capital 200

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Construction 200

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

The venture capital firm’s mission is to be “entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs.” How do the best-in-class companies perform when ARR is treated as a growth metric? Another metric to measure efficiency is Burn Multiple, a simple but effective way to measure the growth efficiency of a business.

Scale 196

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Venture Capital 196

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

The Bank also offers venture banking products including a comprehensive suite of financial services focused on entrepreneurial and venture-backed businesses and their venture capital and private equity investors, with offices located in key innovation hubs across the United States. appeared first on SaaStr.

Banking 222

Banking Payment Features Venture Capital Subscription 222

Kellblog

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Unlike Meritech Public Comps , where you can see metrics for the best [1], public SaaS companies, this private company data is somewhat harder to come by (the only other source that springs to mind is RevOps Squared ) and, for most of us, it provides much more realistic comparables than Meritech [2]. Free cashflow (FCF) margin of -5%.

Metrics 135

Metrics SaaS Benchmarks Churn 135

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2022

Logan Allin, Managing Partner at Fin Venture Capital, has reviewed hundreds of deck submissions and shares the secrets to crafting the perfect presentation to win over investors. metrics, and what value-add your VC gives the company. Allin points out, “Capital for the best entrepreneurs is a pure commodity. MoM Growth.

Venture Capital 187

Venture Capital Management Business Model Investment 187

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2020

This article looks at the history of SaaS as it relates to financial capital and production capital. I argue that standard saas metrics make it possible for founders to scale using debt capital (production capital thats cheaper) instead of solely relying on venture capital (financial capital thats more expensive). .

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital Technical Review SaaS Scale 223

Baremetrics

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Baremetrics is a business metrics tool that provides 26 metrics about your business, such as MRR, ARR, LTV, total customers, and more. Sign up for the Baremetrics free trial , and start monitoring your subscription revenue accurately and easily. Venture Capital Funding When should you be thinking about Equity Financing?

Finance 98

Finance Venture Capital SaaS Payments Payments 98

SaaStr

APRIL 11, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank specialized in venture capital-backed startups, primarily in tech. Understandably, the collapse of a venture bank where companies could lose billions of dollars was staggering. Other qualifiers diTargiani looks for in a startup are: Revenue, although pre-revenue deals are also accepted.

Banking 203

Banking Sales Hiring Venture Capital Communication 203

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2022

But, over the years as both a founder and a start-up exec, I have raised over $40m in Venture Capital across 4 successful start-ups. We weren’t, probably (can’t know for sure) going to get a Series B on just that, back in early ’07 at least, and we didn’t have enough revenue to cover the salaries of the team.

Venture Capital 221

Venture Capital Technical Review Finance Investment 221

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2020

We’re going to do something a little different here, and both catch up on the state of Equality in Venture Capital and Cloud, and also revisit Aileen’s classic pieces in TechCrunch that kicked off the age of the Unicorn. We’ll do a deep dive into the latest metrics on what it takes to build something iconic.

Trends 216

Trends Venture Capital Scale PayPal 216

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2022

There’s a common meme in Venture Capital that traction is tough to quantify, but you know it when you see it. With >50% of new revenue acquired from zero-cost marketing, i.e. viral, ether, word-of-mouth, whatever … because these compound. Well, let’s take a stab at it anyway. Quantifying it.

Scale 258

Scale Venture Capital SaaS Branding 258

Kellblog

MAY 19, 2021

.” — Me responding to Ray calling me the Yoda of SaaS metrics. Just a quick post to highlight my recent appearance on the Metrics That Measure Up podcast, hosted by Ray Rike , founder and CEO of RevOps^2 , a firm focused on SaaS metrics and benchmarking. How metrics vary with scale. Rangaswami.

Metrics 88

Metrics Scale Benchmarks Acquisition 88

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2019

Only 8% of Slack’s revenue last year was from direct conversion from Free to Paid — and that’s down from 10% the year before. Today, Slack has 575+ customers paying more than $100k a year, which important now accounts for 40%+ of its revenue. That’s way, way up from just 22% of revenue from $100k+ deals in 2017.

Scale 275

Scale Venture Capital SMB Enterprise 275

Chart Mogul

AUGUST 15, 2019

Revenue-based financing is quickly becoming a popular way for startups to raise funds without sacrificing equity. This is a guest post by Brian Parks, Managing Partner at Bigfoot Capital. Or, maybe you haven’t and are still thinking your only options are to bootstrap or pursue angel and/or venture capital. What is RBF?

Finance 85

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 85

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

It was just a little while ago that Salesforce was doing $1 billion in ARR revenue. And true enough … freemium only ended up being 20% of our revenue, at least strictly defined. Worth hiring a sales team, raising some venture capital (even a modest amount). And it’s better than that, these days.

Scale 202

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital AWS 202

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2021

This is when Second Order Revenue really kicks in. More on second order revenue here. Make measured customer happiness one of your very core metrics at the company. Yes, venture capital can help smooth out the bumps here. Then every prospect has heard of you. They all at least want to kick the tires. More seats.

SaaS 363

SaaS Venture Capital Churn Branding 363

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2021

But here are some things that founders do that perhaps suggest you aren’t yet ready to raise venture capital. You don’t know your core metrics fluently. You just gotta know your MRR (revenue), average deal size, latest customers you closed, burn rate, etc. The best CEOs know their metrics cold, really all of them.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Investment Pricing Business Model 225

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2021

“The 5 Metrics You Should Track to Maximize Your Company’s Valuation with Thomas Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures” This fun, informal session with Thomas (and pinch-hitting from Jason Lemkin during an IT glitch) was a great deep dive into where SaaS is, right now. #2.

Cloud 142

Cloud CTO Scale Venture Capital 142

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Did You Learn From Your Worst Venture Capital Investment? I’ve had two investments that claimed, for example, certain revenues were recurring revenues that really weren’t. But sometimes, the investment isn’t quite at the stage of maturity you think it is. That extra diligence will uncover tha t.

Venture Capital 221

Venture Capital Investment CTO Churn 221

ProfitWell

MARCH 17, 2020

Raised venture capital for his previous startups (Flowtown and Clarity). Through SaaS Academy, Dan works with SaaS companies that need to reach the next level in attracting and converting leads, expanding their customer base, and increasing revenues. Funnel metrics. Next up—funnel metrics. Let’s break them down.

Metrics 59

Metrics Venture Capital Forecasting Consulting 59

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2023

And we’re already trending upwards of 4,000 of your fellow SaaS CEOs, Revenue Leaders, Executives, and Investors joining us for 2.5 And Kyle Poyar, Operating Partner at OpenView will follow that up with Why SaaS Metrics are Broken and how to accurately benchmark a PLG or consumption-based SaaS company.

Venture Capital 208

Venture Capital Banking Benchmarks Scaling 208

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Today, we’ll explore one of the enterprise behemoths, both in market cap and average revenue per customer: WorkDay. In 2009 and 2010, the company recognized more revenue from services than subscription. In 2011, the year of the IPO, services still accounted for 33% of revenues.

Benchmarks 110

Benchmarks Deferred Revenue Venture Capital Outsourced Development 110

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2023

You need to parse through the vanity metrics and figure out what will endure. When I look at the purpose of venture capital, it’s not to burn a dollar five in order to grow a dollar of revenue,” says Magnuson. They were building for a market that didn’t exist so they could sell to job titles that also didn’t exist.

Scale 187

Scale Mobile Venture Capital Scaling 187

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2023

If you’ve raised venture capital, you know net revenue retention is important. The most underrated metric at this stage is time-to-value. As such, time-to-value is the most underrated metric in SaaS. Issues can lurk behind impressive metrics. Customer success is all about outcomes. Everything!

Scale 169

Scale Sales Hiring Customer Success Scaling 169

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2022

Yet, funded startups can learn a lot from the bootstrapped ones to grow smoothly and generate revenue. In SaaS, retention is usually driven by recurring revenue, cross-selling, and up-selling. This is where SaaS companies generate most their revenue. Venture capital-backed companies update their pricing once every 2.8

Payments 130

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Venture Capital 130

SaaSHolic

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

In the startup world, “success” has long been measured by the ability to attract venture capital, secure large rounds of funding, and achieve high valuations. We intend to realign everyone’s focus on what truly matters: sustainable revenue growth and the long-term health of their businesses.

Venture Capital 52

Venture Capital Entrepreneurship Startup Business Model 52

Chart Mogul

AUGUST 15, 2019

Revenue-based financing is quickly becoming a popular way for startups to raise funds without sacrificing equity. This is a guest post by Brian Parks, Managing Partner at Bigfoot Capital. Or, maybe you haven’t and are still thinking your only options are to bootstrap or pursue angel and/or venture capital. What is RBF?

Finance 52

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 52

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

When the cloud first began to take shape, the market couldn’t help but be incredibly fragmented: open-source code distributed itself across the online ecosystem, and tons of venture capital funding poured into a new wave of startups. .

Cloud 185

Cloud Venture Capital Social Media Technology 185

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to understand how venture capital works. You have to see: A couple of good hires brought in Improvement on some metrics A big deal or two hanging out there, brought in and closed Things taken off your plate. If, in one sales cycle, things aren’t improving on several core metrics, they never will.

Part-Time VPE 173

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 173

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 12, 2017

When they do pay to acquire a customer, they must invest the CAC dollars two months ahead of revenue (60 day sales cycle). As they grow the business, these two founders experience no churn, collect revenue monthly, and observe that for every 10 paid customers, 3 new customers arrive organically. Let’s create two universes.

Sales Hiring 201

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Startup Finance 201

SaaSOptics

JUNE 24, 2021

In a recent webinar, SaaSOptics CEO Tim McCormick and Bigfoot Capital CEO Brian Parks discussed the changes that have taken place across the SaaS financing landscape, particularly those in debt financing of SaaS companies. . So what’s the difference between debt and equity-based financing, and how do you know which is right for you?

Finance 59

Finance Venture Capital SaaS Banking 59

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2023

Pepper shares that ICONIQ, a venture capital firm with $10B under management, made fewer investments last year than ever before. At the beginning of 2022, most of those plans were based on the assumption that 2021 growth could be sustained — 56% year-over-year growth in revenue. PST, to unveil the data behind effective scaling.

Outsourcing Services 169

Outsourcing Services Scaling Venture Capital Forecasting 169

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2023

You can’t make money in venture unless you have companies that get to $100M or $200M in revenue within seven to ten years. Understanding what venture capital firms are looking for helps you make the best decisions for your specific company. They’d try to get to $100M in revenue if they were lucky, and that was 8x.

Venture Capital 192

Venture Capital Management Business Model Trends 192

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2019

Niall Wall, Box SVP of Business and Corporate Development alongside Vicki Lin, Stripe’s Head of Ecosystem and Cecilia Stallsmith, Slack’s Director of Platform Marketing discuss scaling your revenue via indirect channels and platform ecosystems. Then also went into venture capital where I invested in API first products.

Payments 124

Payments Scale Scaling Revenue 124