6 hours agoQuarterly SaaS Payback Period DataPayback period on spend is defined as net new revenue divided by net operating loss. It’s a fully weighted calculation that includes the cost of COGS, G&A, and R&D. Traditional views of payback period compare new revenue to S&M spend only, and while that’s good for evaluating just the S&M…Venture Capital2 min readVenture Capital2 min read
1 day agoQ2 SaaS YOY growth dataHow much has SaaS growth slowed? We looked at the YOY data of every SaaS company that has IPO’d since October 2017 (62 companies). The data is below and shows a material slowdown. YOY growth in Q2 2022 was 30% and as of Q1 2023 it sits at 19%. Revenue is still growing, but that’s a material decline in growth. Out of the 62 companies, only 12 of them (19%) have faster YOY growth in Q2 2023 than they did in Q2 2022.Venture Capital1 min readVenture Capital1 min read
2 days agoQ2 SaaS Net Dollar Retention DataHow is net dollar retention trending in SaaS? We looked at the net dollar retention of every SaaS company that has IPO’d since October 2017 (62 companies) over the past 6 quarters. 34 of them release net dollar retention data, which is below.SaaS2 min readSaaS2 min read
5 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
Sep 20Q2 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
Sep 18Q2 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
