This week, we have got a ton of news for you, right from the fact that all the cloud computing giants have made some major announcements to Shopify continuing to become a potent Amazon rival, and of course, the latest members of the unicorn club along with other funding activity. Let’s not waste any more time and get right into it.
Table of Contents
News of the week
Dropbox: new features help you manage work and home
Dropbox has announced perhaps the biggest update to its service. With Dropbox Passwords, it’s offering the password manager functionality baked right into its app, whereas Dropbox Vault allows the user to secure certain files with additional protection and the ability to share their access in case of an emergency without the need to open your account. There’s also functionality for automatically backing up your files, and integration with HelloSign eSignature.
For companies that require high-performance computing (HPC), Google Cloud has released Filestore High Scale, which allows deployment of shared filed systems with hundreds of thousands of IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second). Throughput and scale go up to 10s of GB/s and 100s of TBs.
Box aims to move workflows out of email with new Box Relay updates
Cloud service provider Box has made it easier for people to create workflows. The updated Box Relay comes with pre-built templates that take care of specific needs of a department in an organization, such as HR or finance, so that anyone can create a workflow without any external help.
Walmart partners with Shopify to expand its online marketplace
Amazon rival Walmart has partnered with Shopify to allow the latter’s sellers to sell on Walmart’s Marketplace. This deal will give access to 120million monthly visitors on Walmart’s platform to Shopify’s sellers.
Zoom to offer all users full encryption, bending to pressure
Backtracking on its earlier stance of offering end-to-end encryption to paid users only, Zoom‘s CEO Eric S Yuan has now announced that the feature will be available to all users. However, the E2E encryption won’t work by dialing via phone and free users will need to provide their phone numbers. The company will start testing encryption from the next month.
Related reads: The “Verticalization” of Zoom | Why Zoom doesn’t have product/market fit
Basecamp launches email service HEY; gets into an issue with Apple App store almost immediately after
Basecamp, a project management software, is one of the oldest SaaS companies around. It also deserves a mention as it has never raised outside capital, and its co-founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson have been a big proponent of remote work (which has become a common occurrence amidst COVID-19). The company is now making its boldest bet yet – launching a full-fledged email service that aims to take on Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail. Dubbed HEY, the email service was launched as a beta on June 15th, and offers some interesting features such as Imbox, screener, adding emails to The Feed / Paper Trail, among a dozen others.
Sadly, as soon as the company launched to the public, its iOS app got into an issue as Apple asked the company to add the payment options through the app (of which it takes 15 to 30 percent cut as well). While the issue is sensitive, and you could on either camp, it surely is something that’s worth thinking about.
Related tweet: https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1272968382329942017
Sinch to buy India’s ACL Mobile for $70million
Cloud communications firm Sinch has made its fourth acquisition amidst the pandemic; this time purchasing the India-based ACL Mobile. The Swedish company is buying ACL Mobile for its foothold in the world’s second-largest internet market, Malaysia, and UAE.
Demandbase acquires Engagio to bring consolidation and ‘clarity’ to B2B marketing
B2B marketing companies Demandbase and Engagio have combined their strengths to sharpen their focus on account-based marketing (ABM). The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, however.
Oracle slides on revenue decline
Announcing its quarterly results, Oracle reported revenue of $10.44billion, which was down 6 percent from the same quarter, last year. The company’s cloud services contributed a major part to its revenue.
Uber pushes into on-demand public transit with its first SaaS partnership
This pandemic is causing the popular ride-hailing company Uber to rethink its business. Its first step is to provide management software to the Transport Authority of Marin (TAM) following the SaaS model. The software allows for requesting, matching, and tracking of TAM’s high-occupancy vehicle fleet via Uber’s app.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
Contentful raises $80M Series E round for its headless CMS
Contentful, a headless CMS provider, has raised $80million Series E funding, which takes its valuation near the vaunted $1billion mark. The round was led by Sapphire Ventures. The company will be using the money to improve its marketing efforts as well as R&D.
Outreach nabs $50M at a $1.33B valuation for software that helps with sales engagement
Sales automation company Outreach has garnered $50million Series F funding which was led by Sands Capital. Valuing the company at $1.33billion, it’ll be investing in improving the AI capabilities. The company’s software works on top of CRM providers such as Salesforce and Kustomer.
Unbounce raises $38.4M to build better landing pages with automation
Started in 2009, Unbounce offers a simple way to optimize landing pages. The Vancouver-based company has grown since then to 200 people and has raised its first external funding after a small seed round in 2011. The $38.4million round was led by Crest Rock Partners.
Onna raises $27 million to integrate knowledge across workplace apps
Onna, a data integration platform has gotten $27million in a Series B round. The funding was led by Atomico, and the Barcelona-based company will be using it for hiring and opening additional offices. Onna is aiming to build “the world’s first knowledge integration platform” that brings data from various sources like AWS, GitHub, and Zendesk among others in one place.
Salt Security raises $20 million to protect APIs with AI
Cybersecurity startup Salt Security has received $20million funding to help companies protect their APIs. The Series A round was led by Tenaya Capital, and the company will be using it to expand its sales and marketing teams.
Zycada aims to make it extremely fast for customers to browse through e-commerce websites. By using its bot technology, the company claims that its customers’ time to interact (TTI) speeds have grown by 10 times when compared to Amazon. Now it has managed to get $19million funding which was led by Khosla Ventures.
In numbers
B2B and B2C SaaS and subscription COVID-19 impact report
Must reads
Cisco Live 2020 – Webex strikes back at Zoom’s rebel incursion
As the SaaS economy expands, how will we define authentic B2B customer success
4 things your competitors are doing to emerge from the downturn stronger than before
Listen to
Tim Soulo – CMO at Ahrefs – getting to +$50M ARR & +65% YoY growth by ditching expert advice
Ahrefs came out of nowhere to take on the likes of Moz in the SEO software category. Its CMO, Tim Soulo, tells about how they’ve managed to do that by going against the conventional wisdom. He also states why content played a key role in their marketing strategy.
How Customer Success has Shaped the Future of SaaS – with Nick Mehta
Nick Mehta, Gainsight‘s CEO, has been credited with defining customer success as a category. In this podcast, he shares why people take precedence over the product, how SaaS has changed the software world, and gives advice to startup founders too.
Why human experience, as an investment, enhances the SaaS onboarding experience with Andy Mura
While most people focus on UX, Any Mura, a marketing expert, discusses why Human Experience is something that companies need to focus on. It includes improving the employee experience, which in turn will enhance the customer experience. He also gives growth advice for SaaS companies, how one should decide whether they should focus on sales or product-led growth, marketing budgets, and more.
Watch
Deep-dive into the business of SaaS with Girish Mathrubootham
Freshworks, one of the storied SaaS companies from India, has grown strength to strength over the years. In this video, its founder and CEO, Girish Mathrubootham tells about the SaaS business, and how companies can adapt to the future among other things.
SAP’s Sapphire Now 2020
SAP recently held its virtual conference dubbed Sapphire Now 2020. The three-day event had a ton of announcements, including a discussion on current challenges, new features that the company is working on, and more. While the above playlist is for day one’s talks, you can find the rest of the talks and keynotes as well on the brand’s YouTube channel.
