The last week’s news suggests there are more places where the “as-a-service” model of SaaS will be prevalent sooner than later. And both the giants as well as startups are making that transition. Of course, a lot more happened in the past week too, be it in terms of quarterly results or SaaS funding. So without any further delay, here’s everything that deserves your attention.
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News of the week
DocuSign jumps on strong quarterly sales, raised billing outlook
Electronic signature software DocuSign did get affected after the reversal of the trends witnessed during the past two years. Yet, it managed to beat the analysts’ estimates with its latest quarterly results. Its second-quarter revenue reached $622.2million, higher than the estimated $602.7million. For the entire year, the company is forecasting revenue of $2.57billion.
Cisco plans to predict, solve network problems via SaaS
Networking giant Cisco is making huge strides in the SaaS world, thanks to its acquisition of ThousandEyes two years back. It has already integrated its features in its core product lines such as Catalyst, Nexus switches, and has now expanded that to predictive networking. This will ensure that the impact of the outages can be minimized.
Sequoia India & Southeast Asia’s new platform to help SaaS founders expand globally
Sequoia is one of the leading VC firms in the world. And its Indian and Southeast Asian arm is aiming to make it easier for the SaaS startups in the region to expand successfully in global markets. Dubbed Pathfinders, it’ll match SaaS founders with operators and investors to help refine their GTM strategy. The interesting thing is that the VC firm is doing this pro-bono and won’t have any commercial benefit.
Startup Graphiant offers SaaS-based replacement for MPLS, SD-WAN
While on the one hand, a conventional player like Cisco is moving to the SaaS model, there are startups like Graphiant which are aiming to make traditional technologies more modern. The California-based company has launched Graphiant Network Edge, which provides connectivity between the enterprise WAN, hybrid cloud, network edge, customers, and more as a SaaS. What differentiates Graphiant is that it uses graph database technology.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
Localyze, a SaaS for staff relocation, gets $35million as it gears up for US launch
YC-backed Localyze was founded in 2018 to help employees of its customers with immigration and relocation logistics. It has now raised $35million in Series B funding as it plans to launch in North America. The investment was led by General Catalyst, and Localyze also mentioned that it has acquired San Francisco-based HR firm TruePlan to help with its expansion in the American market.
Josys secures $32million Series A for its SaaS management platform
Last year, Raksul spun off Josys which focuses on the automated management of IT devices. The Japan-based startup has closed a $4.4billion yen (~$32million) Series A round led by Global Brain. The funding will be utilized towards expanding to overseas markets like Singapore, India, and Australia among others.
Uiflow secures cash and Freshworks partnership to bolster its app dev platform
Uiflow enables developers to build frontend apps more quickly. It has received $15million in funding in a Series A round led by Addition Capital. The startup also announced its partnership with Freshworks which allows Freshworks customers to create dashboards for handling tickets in Freshservice.
Must reads
How SaaS technology is in the driving seat of the fintech industry
Cloud computing, SaaS and the new normal for manufacturers
Listen to
Tips on international expansion with the COO of Deel, Dan Westgarth
Deel is the fastest SaaS company to reach $100million in ARR. But it’s not stopping at that, and more importantly, it managed to reach such a scale because of its quick expansion to international markets. In this podcast, the payroll software’s COO Dan Westgarth shares the founding story of the company, how they managed to scale infrastructure, and how they achieved product-market fit for various geographies, among others.
Navigating the rocky road from founder-led sales to the first dozen sales professionals with Demodesk CEO Veronika Riederle and VP Revenue Lauren Wright
Scaling a sales team is among the biggest challenges for any startup. So it’s crucial to understand and learn from those who have been able to do that well. In this episode, Demodesk’s CEO Veronika Riederle, and VP of Revenue, Lauren Wright takes listeners through the three stages of growth and nurturing the right sales professionals.
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The fundamentals of SaaS pricing with Rob Walling
SaaS pricing continues to be one of the most challenging things for any startup. But this video acts as a primer on how to go about pricing, how to increase pricing, and more.
