Welcome to the last edition of the SaaS weekly roundup of the year. 2020 has been full of ups and downs, but one thing that has become evident is the resilience of the SaaS industry. It’s clear that the space will continue to grow, and we’ll ensure that we bring you everything that matters in the form of this newsletter. So as we wish you happy holidays and a new year, take a look at the news, acquisitions, and funding in the dynamic world of software-as-a-service.
Table of Contents
News of the week
Thoma Bravo agrees to buy RealPage for $9.6billion
The last week of the year 2020 also had an acquisition, and it was quite significant as well. Thoma Bravo has purchased a real estate software company for an astounding $9.6billion. RealPage provides a software platform to owners and managers of rental properties for taking rent, keeping track of maintenance requests, etc.
Cisco acquires software startup Dashbase to bolster observability in AppDynamics
It was just in 2017 that Cisco had acquired AppDynamics, and now, in a bid to bolster that, it’s purchasing Dashbase. Dashbase provides logs and events analytics technology with its software. The company hasn’t disclosed the terms of the deal.
RingCentral acquires DeepAffects
RingCentral, one of the leading cloud communications provider, has acquired a conversational intelligence company. DeepAffects uses AI to analyze conversations to surface interesting insights. The financial terms haven’t been divulged.
Zoom may launch an email service and calendar app to compete with Google and Microsoft
While Zoom has seen an explosive growth amidst the ongoing pandemic, the video conferencing software doesn’t want to limit itself to be a one-trick pony. If a report from The Information is to be believed, the company is working on an email service and calendar app.
Letterhead wants to be the Shopify of email newsletters
Newsletters have grown at an exponential pace with platforms like Substack. Now, a company dubbed Letterhead aims to make it easy to not only create newsletters, but earn revenue too with ads, subscriptions, and more.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
ClassIn raises $265million in Series C funding
Chinese EdTech company ClassIn offers interactive classrooms, and it has now closed a $265million Series C funding round. Led by Hillhouse Ventures, the company will be deploying the fund in R&D, and expanding to more markets.
Digital contract management startup Ironclad reportedly has raised $100million
Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital has led the $100million round for digital contract management software dubbed Ironclad. With a valuation nearing $1billion at $950million, the company will be using its funds to improve its product and go against the rival DocuSign.
In October this year, Dialpad had raised $100million which was led by OMERS Growth Equity. Now, the cloud communications software company has announced that it has received $10million from Softbank in the same round. Dialpad has raised $250million in total with a valuation of $1.2billion.
Boardable’s board management software for nonprofits raises $8million
Boardable provides board management software for non-profits, and it has raised $8million in a new funding round. It was led by Base10 Partners, and the company will be using the amount to grow its team and develop new tools.
Must reads
SaaS in 2020: a look back at the year which accelerated its adoption
Salesforce’s Marc Benioff is betting $28billion on Bret Taylor. So who is he?
SaaS is starting to sell Chinese companies on software: GGV’s Joshua Wu
SaaS pricing pages do seem to use the ‘Decoy Effect’. But not so much for bundles.
Listen to
Marketing and Demand Generation in B2B SaaS with Vidya Peters
Vidya Peters, CMO at Marqeta, a company that offers a card issuing platform, shares about her journey as a marketer. She talks about her previous stint at Mulesoft (which was acquired by Salesforce), and things like account-based marketing, building a demand-gen team, content marketing, and more.
The Secrets to turbo charging sales in 2021 with Keyfactor, Checkout.com, Contentstack, and Insight Partners
In this podcast, three companies – Keyfactor, Checkout.com and Contentstack, share about how they managed sales during 2020. More importantly, they discuss how they are planning to boost sales next year.
Watch
Deferred Revenue vs Accrued Revenue (how to set your SaaS company up for success)
In this video, Dan Martell shares that while companies rely on cash accounting, software companies should be using accrual accounting. He also shares how deferred revenue and accrued revenue differ, and why this method is better than calculating cash in the bank.
