This past week a lot of SaaS companies announced their quarterly results, which reiterated the fact that the space is seeing a lot of interest. We’re also seeing new SaaS companies aiming to go public along with a number of significant funding rounds in the space. All this and more in this week’s SaaS weekly roundup…
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News of the week
HashiCorp aiming for $13billion valuation in IPO, according to updated prospectus
Cloud infrastructure software maker HashiCorp’s IPO is expected to value it at $13billion. It was last valued at $5.1million when it raised $175million Series E investment in 2020.
AWS CEO announces new private 5G service at re:Invent 2021
AWS recently held its re:Invent 2021 conference, where it made a spate of announcements. Its new CEO Adam Selipsky stressed how the cloud giant is helping businesses, and private 5G service is no different. It’ll help organizations to deploy and manage their private networks, and scale as per the needs. The company is planning to sell shares at $68 to $72 each.
Microsoft Teams Essentials is a new standalone version for small businesses
The Redmond giant is introducing a separate version of Microsoft Teams that’s aimed at small businesses. Dubbed Microsoft Teams Essentials, it’ll be priced at $4 per user per month. While one wouldn’t need to pay $6 for Microsoft 365 (starting tier), the new version of Teams lacks a meeting recording and transcription feature, real-time translation, etc.
Salesforce promotes Bret Taylor to co-CEO alongside Benioff
The fact that Bret Taylor could take up the leadership position at Salesforce has been in news for a while. And now, it’s official – Bret Taylor has been promoted to the role of co-CEO.
Salesforce also announced its Q3 results, beating analyst expectations as it achieved a profit of $468million on sales of $6.86million. The past week also saw a lot of SaaS companies announcing their quarterly results, which brings us to…
Earnings corner
CrowdStrike beats estimates for Q3, sees revenue increase 63 percent compared to 2020
Security firm CrowdStrike published its Q3 results. With revenue of $380.1million, a 63 percent from the same quarter last year, it comfortably beat market estimates. Its subscription revenue also witnessed a 67 percent increase to reach $357million.
Related read: Interview with Nitin Varma, MD – India & SAARC at CrowdStrike
Okta report better-than-expected Q3 results
Identity and access management software Okta manages to beat market expectations with its Q3 results. It announced revenue of $351million, which grew by 61 percent year-over-year. The company also reaped the benefits of acquiring Auth0 back in May. For Q4, it has given a guidance of $358 to $360million in revenue.
Snowflake’s industry focus paying off with strong Q4
Data warehouse software Snowflake has been on a tear since its IPO, and its latest quarterly results continue the trend. Its Q3 sales surged by 110 percent, helping it reach the revenue of $334.4million. Worth noting that analysts were expecting the revenue to be $305.6million. For Q4, Snowflake’s CEO Frank Slootman is projecting a revenue of $345 to $350million.
Asana beats Q3 estimates, surpasses $100million in quarterly sales
Project management software Asana exceeded $100million in quarterly sales, which is 70 percent up from the same period last year. It also announced that it has over 114,000 paying customers, and those who pay $5000 or more on an annualized basis grew to 14,143 – an increase of 58 percent y-o-y.
Box beats Wall Street expectations for Q3, delivers $224million in revenue
Despite choppy waters, cloud management software Box continues to deliver good results. It beat market expectations with revenue of $224million (vs $218.6million), while its net retention rate was 109 percent. It’s projecting revenue in the range of $227 to $229million for Q4.
DocuSign shares plunge as fiscal Q3 results top expectations but outlook disappoints
Not all SaaS companies enjoyed the love from the market. Electronic signature software pioneer DocuSign saw its shares decline by as much as 42 percent as it reduced its revenue guidance for Q4. It did manage to beat market expectations with $545million in revenue, but is expecting $557 to $563million in revenue, as compared to the consensus of $575million.
Related read: DocuSign CEO: ‘We’ve got a little bit of turning the ship, but it’s straightforward what we need to do’
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
Thought Machine closes $200million for its cloud native banking SaaS and becomes a unicorn
Another week, another SaaS unicorn – Thought Machine, a cloud-based platform providing banking technology has nabbed a $200million funding round. The Series C investment values the company at more than a billion and was led by Nyca Partners.
Upbound nabs $60million to grow its open source Crossplane multi-cloud management project
An open-source multi-cloud management tool Upbound helps companies manage their multi-cloud strategy. Now the startup has raised $60million led by Altimeter Capital. The startup offers an open-source version that customers can install themselves as well as a SaaS version that Upbound can manage for its customers.
Kayak co-leads Life House’s $60million Series C to ‘reimagine’ the hotel experience
SaaS-ification of traditional industries is continuing at an unprecedented pace. So it’s not a surprise to see hotel management software – Life House – which helps independent hotel owners and operators with the on-site management of hotels. Worth noting that Life House started as a boutique hotel operator, but now manages operations for close to 50 hotels in North America.
Frontegg raises $25million for its user management platform
Tel Aviv-based FrontEgg provides user management tools to SaaS companies to build their own services. It has received $25million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners. With this investment, it’ll build its sales and marketing teams as well accelerate its marketplace.
Must reads
IPOs and beyond: a guide to exit options for companies
Your product’s price determines your business playbook
Listen to
How Raj Sheth went from growing to buying SaaS companies
Raj Sheth started his journey as someone who helped SaaS companies unlock their growth, but today, he runs Decalab that buys SaaS companies. He purchases companies that have grown their revenue to $1 to $3million, and buys them to bring them faster and efficient growth. Listen to the podcast to know what works and how companies can ensure that they can grow faster.
How Mailshake generated a 40 percent growth in LinkedIn referral traffic by activating employees’ content
Mailshake is a sales engagement software that helps people make good first impressions when they reach out to their prospects. In this podcast, its VP of Marketing, Alessandra Colaci shares a recent initiative on LinkedIn where the startup got the employees involved to post valuable content for their audience. She also shares how they measured the tangible and intangible results from the campaign.
Landing and expanding at enterprises to drive digital adoption with Khadim Batti of Whatfix
Land and expand has always been said to be the best strategy for SaaS companies to grow faster. But how to do it? In this podcast, Khadim Batti from Whatfix, a digital adoption software, shares about his company and how they follow the land and expand model among other things.
Watch
How iZooto’s Value SaaS bet yielded dividends for investors & ESOP buybacks for employees
When it comes to the push notification software, there’s a lot of competition. Yet, iZooto has managed to carve a niche for itself while being bootstrapped. In this video, its CEO Neel Kothari shares the journey of iZooto, what makes it different, and how it focused on publishers instead of e-commerce companies.
