Welcome back to the SaaS weekly roundup, a one-stop place for all the happenings in the world of SaaS in the past week. What’s interesting this time is that the funding environment might be slowing down, the announcements and new launches by SaaS companies are at full throttle.
News of the week
Google makes it even easier to manage your tasks
Google Tasks is a little-known gem in Gmail that lets you add emails to a task or add any other to-do item in it without leaving the email platform. Now, the internet behemoth is making Google Tasks more powerful by allowing you to create tasks from Google Chat, Google Calendar, and more. In addition to that, Google Assistant Reminders capability is also being merged with Google Tasks.
Nvidia launches Omniverse cloud services in 100 countries to power the metaverse
Leading graphics giant Nvidia is venturing into the SaaS world with the release of Omniverse Cloud. As the name indicates, it’s a suite of cloud services for artists, developers, and enterprise teams that will help them design and publish metaverse applications anywhere.
Slack’s new Canvas feature puts a document editor in your chat window
Just last week we talked about Canva foraying into the workplace apps, and now business messaging software Slack has announced the ability to edit documents from within the app itself. The Canvases (documents on Slack) can contain text, images, or rich content like a tweet or a YouTube link. Worth noting however, that a Canvas exists inside Slack itself as of now, and it can’t be shared via a link or an email. The feature will be rolled out next year.
DocuSign names former Google executive Allan Thygesen as new CEO
Electronic signature software DocuSign’s Dan Springer announced in June that he’s stepping down, and now it has announced its next CEO. It has hired Alphabet executive Allan Thygesen who has spent almost 12 years at Google.
Alibaba Cloud pledges $1billion to boost overseas alliance
Chinese retail titan Alibaba is doubling down on its cloud strategy globally as it’s announced a $1billion investment in a “global partner ecosystem upgrade”. Alibaba Cloud has over 11,000 partners worldwide, and has a 9.5 percent market share in 2021.
With Genie, Salesforce is the latest giant to build a real-time CDP
Salesforce recently held its Dreamforce customer conference where it made a bunch of announcements. The biggest is its entry into the CDP space with the launch of Genie, which brings data from all of the company’s clouds in one place. This will enable its customers to build out customer profiles for doing targeted sales and marketing interventions.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
As demand for compliance and security soar, DataGuard tops up with €61million
Data protection and compliance have become more than a buzzword these days. Munich-based DataGuard offers a SaaS platform to help companies implement privacy, information security, and compliance easily. It has now raised €61million in Series B funding. The round was led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital to expand across European and US markets as well as improve the product.
Codacy nabs $15million to improve code reviews with automation
While no-code tools are on the rise, software programming isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps that’s why it makes sense to use technology to make that better. That’s where Codacy comes in, as it automates code reviews to provide information on code quality, security, compliance, and more. It has received $15million in a Series B investment. The funding was led by Bright Pixel Capital.
With remote work becoming the norm, several SaaS companies are popping up to help make remote hiring easier. Remofirst allows organizations to hire in over 150 countries by acting as an Employer of Record. It has now emerged out of stealth, and announced $14.1million in funding which was closed in February. The round was led by Mouro Capital and QED Investors, and Remofirst highlights that it stands out from the competition because of its affordability.
Must reads
A look back at Q2 ’22 public cloud software earnings
Listen to
State of the Cloud 2022: the centaur report with Bessemer Venture Partners Sameer Dholakia, Mary D’Onofrio, and Elliott Robinson
Bessemer Venture Partners State of the Cloud report needs no introduction. While this year’s report is already out, in this episode, the firm’s partners Sameer Dholakia, Elliott Robinson, and Mary D’Onofrio talk about Centaur – SaaS companies with $100million in ARR. They share the insights and strategies that such companies deploy to reach the Centaur status.
Why ‘Making It’ is more than just having a great product, with Alina Vandenberghe, Co-Founder & Co-CEO Chili Piper
In this podcast, Chili Piper’s co-founder and co-CEO shares her journey into the world of SaaS, and how she found the idea of starting an appointment scheduling software. She also sheds light on their marketing and GTM strategy.
Everything that breaks on the way to $1billion ARR with Mailchimp Co-Founder Ben Chestnut and SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin
When it comes to bootstrapped success stories, Mailchimp is among the shining examples thanks to its acquisition by Intuit last year. In this podcast, its co-founder Ben Chestnut shares how to navigate the challenges while scaling the company to $1billion ARR.
Watch
Automated testing software BrowserStack is India’s most valuable private SaaS company. In this video, its co-founder and CEO, Ritesh Arora chats with LogiNext’s Dhruvi Sanghvi about how to ensure stickiness with B2B users, the ongoing VC winter, how to find the right talent, and more.
