New launches, quarterly revenue announcements, acquisitions, big funding rounds – this week had it all. So, if you find it difficult to follow what truly deserves your attention in the ever-changing world of SaaS, then you’ve come to the right place. Read on to find out everything that mattered in the SaaS ecosystem.
Table of Contents
News of the week
Shop Pay expands to Facebook and Instagram
Shopify has been moving from strength to strength to become an e-commerce software of choice for independent retailers. But now, it seems to have made its biggest move to help independent businesses sell their products. The company has partnered with Facebook and Instagram, allowing consumers to buy using Shop Pay from the social networks themselves.
Salesforce: creating a best workplace from anywhere, for everyone
The CRM pioneer has announced that it’s giving its employees flexible working options, whether they want to be fully remote (unless their role requires to be in the office), work from home for the most time, but visit the office for discussions, customer meetings, etc. or a small population who will be working from the office location. Along with that, it has also announced flexible working schedules.
Microsoft launches Bulletins and Milestones apps for Teams
The Redmond giant has announced two new apps for Microsoft Teams – Bulletins and Milestones. Aimed at improving productivity, Bulletins will help organizations to share news in one place, whereas Milestones act as a one-stop place for knowing the status of different tasks.
Avaya ups Q2 revenue outlook amid contact center as a service, collaboration, and cloud demand
Contact center software has grown exponentially amidst the pandemic. Avaya’s quarterly results have been stronger than expected thanks to the demand for its OneCloud and Cloud Office services.
WordPress VIP acquiring content analytics company Parse.ly
The enterprise offering from WordPress, WordPress VIP, has announced the acquisition of Parse.ly – a content analytics platform. The deal will help WPVIP customers access Parse.ly’s insights, though the acquisition cost hasn’t been disclosed.
Rewind acquires BackHub to extend its automated SaaS data backups to GitHub
Backup-as-a-service company Rewind has announced the support of data backups for GitHub, thanks to its acquisition of Germany’s BackHub. Rewind already supports leading services such as BigCommerce and Quickbooks.
Datadog acquires Timber and Sqreen, reports lower-than-expected guidance
Application performance monitoring company Datadog reported revenue of $177.5million for the quarter ending on $177.5million, however its earnings guidance was lower than expected. But that didn’t stop it from making two acquisition announcements. It has acquired data pipeline startup Timber Inc and SaaS-based application security management platform provider Sqreen.
ActiveProspect Acquires LeadsBridge
Consent-based marketing provider ActiveProspect has announced the acquisition of LeadsBridge, a company that provides integration software between ad networks like Facebook and Google and CRMs. The terms of the deal weren’t revealed, but it’ll help ActiveProspect to have a global presence.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
Nexthink nabs $180 million to give businesses insights into employees’ software experience
Nexthink helps businesses monitor the software performance on their employees’ devices. With its latest funding of $180million, it has become a unicorn with a valuation of $1.1billion.
‘Headless’ e-commerce platform Fabric raises $43million
Fabric powers e-commerce websites for a number of retailers. Within just four months of raising the $9.5million seed round, the startup has announced a $43million fundraise. Led by Norwest Venture Partners, the funding will help it expand its sales and marketing team.
Lusha raises $40 million to surface sales lead contact info in your browser
For salespeople, finding prospect opportunities is the most difficult part. Lusha aims to make it easier as it offers browser extensions that work on LinkedIn, Gmail, social networks, and Salesforce accounts. Lusha is able to surface contact details and allow the ability to save them on the dashboard. The company has nabbed $40million in funding to expand its R&D capabilities.
Vivun raises $35million to advance presales engineering platform
This week, we’ve another company that’s making it easier for the sales team. Vivun automates the presales processes and counts giants like Okta, Cloudera, and Dell as its clients. It has received $35million Series B funding.
Accessibility overlay startup accessiBe closes $28million Series A
Making one’s website accessible to people with various disabilities isn’t an easy task, that’s why accessiBe wants any website to offer this functionality by offering an accessibility overlay. It has garnered $28million Series A funding to spend on R&D efforts and consult and hire people with disabilities to help in testing and feedback.
Vendia raises $15.5million to disrupt transaction processing
Vendia lets IT teams share data and code, along with offering the ability to process transactions between various third parties. The company has gotten $15.5million funding to develop the Vendia Share service further. It currently supports AWS Lamda, Amazon SQS, and Amazon S3 with support for other cloud platforms in development currently.
Pakistani fintech Safepay raises seed funding from Stripe, others
It’s evident that Stripe believes that the world of payments isn’t just limited to the US. After acquiring Nigeria’s Paystack in October last year, it has led the seed funding for Pakistani startup Safepay. Founded in 2019, the startup provides payment services to over 300 merchants in the country.
Must reads
Got revenue? Alternative financing tools look to help SaaS founders avoid dilution
Anjali Sud is reinventing Vimeo and taking over the future of video
Playbook: scale to $100million+ ARR with a usage-based pricing model
What type of SaaS are you building?
Listen to
Scaling to a $1.3billion valuation while in stealth, the power of different network effects within payment Platforms & How To Leverage Your Board and Investor Base for the Most Value with Matan Bar, Founder & CEO @ Melio
Melio, the account payables automation software, has been growing at a breakneck pace. The company has raised over $254million and is already a unicorn. In this podcast, its co-founder and CEO Matan Bar shares what made him start Melio, how the company has managed to grow so fast, how he interacts with the board, and more.
Community marketing with Dominique Farrar, Head of Community and Comms at Spendesk
Many companies increasingly have started believing the power of communities, however to make them from scratch is easier said than done. In this episode, Spendesk’s Dominique Farrar talks about their community for finance leaders, CFO Connect. She shares how community marketing can help get high quality leads and build brand awareness, and yet, they aren’t the end goals of the community because the primary objective is to educate and help the members.
How to market at mass scale, with Harry Stebbings and Ryan Bonnici, CMO @ Whereby
Video-conferencing software Whereby manages to stand out despite being in the hyper-competitive category. Thanks to its focus on simple user experience and privacy, it has made a name for itself against the likes of Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Its CMO Ryan Bonnici shares how Whereby thinks about marketing at scale, how they hire the personnel, and how he gives free hand to the team to try some new ideas.
Watch
Why Application Security is a must have for any SaaS business
Application Security is an important aspect for SaaS businesses, and it needs to start from the foundation. That’s why DevSecOps has emerged as a way to go about security. In this video, the panel between the business leaders from companies like PayPal, HackerRank, and Darwinbox discusses its importance, how application security is an enabler for sales, and more.
How to retain loyal customers with Wes Bush @ Product-Led
Wes Bush, formerly with Vidyard, has been a huge proponent of product-led growth so much so that he has started the Product-Led Institute. In this episode, he talks to Dan Martell about creating SaaS products that sell themselves.
