The earnings season continued this week as well, with the likes of Dropbox and Alibaba announcing their Q3 results. Of course, the past seven days also saw quite a few funding announcements. So, what are we waiting for? Let’s jump right in.
Table of Contents
News
Replace your background in Google Meet
The Alphabet-owned company is continuing to make additions to its video conferencing software, Google Meet. The latest is the ability to replace the background, which comes just after the option to blur your background.
Popular cloud software provider Dropbox announced its Q3 results and was able to beat the analyst’s expectations. It achieved a revenue of $487.4million with its paying users being 15.25million, up from 14million users in Q3 last year.
Alibaba passes IBM in cloud infrastructure market with over $2billion in revenue
While Alibaba’s Jack Ma is suffering a setback from the delayed IPO for Ant Group, his company Alibaba is staking a serious claim in the cloud market. The company disclosed revenues of more than $2billion from its cloud arm, making it a fourth contender surpassing IBM after Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Lightspeed to acquire ShopKeep to accelerate digital transformation of SMBs across the United States
Cloud-based POS provider Lightspeed is acquiring the New York-based cloud commerce provider ShopKeep. The deal is valued at $440million, and will help Lightspeed to establish a clear leadership in the US with the company projecting that it’ll process $33billion in gross transaction volumes.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
Ant Group-backed e-signature provider bags $151m in series D round
We may not hear much about Chinese companies in the SaaS space often, they do grab our attention every now and then. Esign, an e-signature company, has announced a Series D funding round of $151million. It was led by the Shenzhen Capital Group and the Evergrande High-Tech Group, and the company will be using the amount for developing products and services, as well as expanding its business.
Vimeo raises $150million, while IAC is ‘contemplating’ a spin-off
Just last week Vimeo had launched Vimeo Record, and now it has announced a significant funding of $150million. This suggests its intention of being spun-off from its parent company IAC as its pivot to being a enterprise-focused company is paying off. The company has also stated that it has over 1.5million paying subscribers and over 3,500 enterprise clients.
Tencent backs its former QQ head’s Zoom-for-business startup
Chinese tech giant Tencent has invested in communications platform-as-a-service dubbed Zego. The startup has raised $50million is helped by Lin Youyao who spent 13 years at Tencent before leaving in 2015 to start Zego.
Swedish startup inRiver raises $32million to grow its U.S. HQ in Chicago
inRiver helps companies sell better by using augmented reality, video, 3D visuals, and more. Its Product Information Management (PIM) system helps manufacturers sell through distributors and online stores. The startup will also be using the funding to offer a analytics platform to manufacturers so that they can compare their sales.
French scale-up Odaseva raises $25million to continue global expansion
Billed as data governance platform for enterprises, Odaseva has nabbed a $25milliuon funding led by Eight Roads Ventures. The startup helps companies in backing up and archiving their data, and will be using the money to expand the team.
Ushur closes $25million Series B funding on soaring demand for intelligent automation
Riding on the buzz of no-code and conversational intelligence, Ushur has finished a Series B funding round worth $25million. Led by Third Point Ventures, the company will use it accelerate its sales and marketing efforts.
Why Sequoia just led a $17million Series A in this access management software startup
Access management software StrongDM has received $17million Series A funding. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, and the startup highlights that it helps companies develop an intuitive interface so that employees can sign into resources easily.
Email creation startup Stensul raises $16million
Stensul makes it easier for companies to build marketing emails without requiring any developer efforts. It has now gotten $16million Series B funding led by USVP to expand its hiring.
Must reads
5 interesting learnings from Zendesk. As it crosses $1billion in ARR
C3.ai CEO Tom Siebel on AI and CRM, remote learning’s next breakthrough and regulating social media
7 proven ways to boost user engagement for your SaaS product
And then there was video: how Wistia has shaped strategy in a world of disruption
Listen to
SaaS growth, product management, retention, flywheels: behind the paywall with Lenny Rachitsky
Lenny Rachitsky, a former product manager at Airbnb and the person behind popular Lenny’s newsletter, discusses about bottom-up SaaS metrics and how it differentiates the companies. He also shares about retention, conversion rate, and creating effective flywheels among other things.
3 secrets to selling up-market with the leaders of Stripe, DocuSign and Lever
Moving upmarket isn’t an easy task, so it’s quite helpful to listen to leaders from the likes of Stripe, DocuSign and Lever discussing how to think about the move. They also suggest what internal and external factors could help in with the GTM strategy.
Building your SaaS company’s growth function with Elena Verna
Elena Verna is a Growth Advisor and EIR at Reforge, and was previously with Miro as an interim CMO. She shares her unusual journey and also talks about companies should think about growth function, and how growth team fit into the role.
Watch
SaaS/B2B – how to get your first 100 customers
In this video, host TK Kader shares how SaaS businesses can get their first 100 customers. He provides three principles – what is the problem that your product is solving, how do you drive awareness (to figure out no of leads, etc. to convert to paying users), and define whether your product is marketing or sales driven.
