2 days agoQ2 SaaS Margins & Op lossAre SaaS companies burning less cash? We looked at the operating income and margin of every SaaS company that has IPO’d since October 2017 (62 companies). The data is below and shows that operating margin and loss have improved. Below is the data.SaaS2 min readSaaS2 min read
4 days agoQ2 SaaS cash efficiency & payback period dataAre SaaS companies spending less to add new revenue? We looked at the ‘cash efficiency’ of every SaaS company that has IPO’d since October 2017 (64 companies). The definition of cash efficiency is net new revenue/operating loss, so the higher the figure, the more revenue is being added for each…SaaS3 min readSaaS3 min read
6 days agoQ2 SaaS metrics and financials (NDR, growth, efficiency)We keep close track of every SaaS IPO in the past five years (since MongoDB in October 2017). Those 62 companies have all now issued their Q2 2023 earnings reports (Except Zscaler, but we’re not waiting on them). Below we summarize key financials and metrics.Venture Capital3 min readVenture Capital3 min read
Sep 14SaaS acquisition multiples ~8xAlongside multiples of publicly traded SaaS companies, public SaaS acquisitions are some of the most relevant you can look at for deriving SaaS revenue multiples. These transactions are all cash, the financials are public and audited, and these are all control transactions so the data is about as pure as…Venture Capital3 min readVenture Capital3 min read
Sep 12SaaS best practices for sales, onboarding, and CSWe met with a SaaS business that in our view is operating using best practices. Below some of my notes which you may find helpful for your own SaaS business. Customer Success. At this company, customer success reps are specialized by industry so that they can speak the customer’s language…Venture Capital3 min readVenture Capital3 min read
Sep 11Average R&D Spend at 140 SaaS co’sWhat is an appropriate level of development or R&D expense for a successful SaaS business? We looked at 141 SaaS IPOs at the time of IPO (since Dropbox in March 2018 ) to get a sense for how successful SaaS businesses allocate to R&D. The raw data and observations are…Venture Capital3 min readVenture Capital3 min read
Sep 5“Strategic” investors don’t matterStrategic investors, defined as corporations that make venture investments, can be a valuable source of capital but are they critical? No. We dug through the filings of 202 tech companies and found that only 32 of them had a strategic investor (16%). The list is below.SaaS3 min readSaaS3 min read
Sep 1Tech founder ownership at exitThe list below shows founder or CEO ownership of 202 tech companies at IPO. The median level of founder ownership shown is 15% while the average is 20%.Tech3 min readTech3 min read
Aug 29Klaviyo should ignite SaaS IPOsOn August 25th, Klaviyo filed an S1 which is a prospectus companies issue prior to IPO. We read through it, and we believe Klaviyo is likely to restart the market for software IPO’s, so long as they look like Klaviyo (nice growth and slightly profitable). Below are some of the…Venture Capital4 min readVenture Capital4 min read
Aug 28SaaS Founder Ownership at IPOThe founders of Jfrog owned 24% of the business at IPO. Viant’s founders owned 93% and Datto’s founder owned 15%. Braze’s founders owned only 4% combined. The range of founder ownership at exit/IPO can be quite wide and is dependent on any number of factors, including the ability to command…SaaS2 min readSaaS2 min read
