SaaS companies stayed cash efficient in Q1
Every quarter we look at the ‘cash efficiency’ of SaaS companies that have IPO’d since October 2017. The definition of cash efficiency is net new revenue/operating loss over the past year, so the higher the figure, the more revenue is being added for each dollar of loss. The reciprocal of this formula is the payback period on your net loss, so for instance if you have net new revenue/operating loss of $0.50, your payback period is 2 years (no good). If it’s $0.75, your payback period is 1.5 years (good), and if it’s $1.00 your payback period is 1 year (excellent). Note that for companies that are profitable or failing to grow, this ratio doesn’t apply and we have marked those companies accordingly. The data for Q1 2024, measured over the last 12 months is below.
Over the past 9 quarters, SaaS cash efficiency has been range-bound between $0.70 and $0.91. In Q1 2024, on median companies added $0.72 of new revenue for each dollar of operating loss. Adding $0.72 of net new revenue for every dollar of net loss means you have a payback period of 1.3 years which is good. While the figure is volatile, we think it stays range-bound as it has around ~$0.80.
Why is it ok to generate less than $1 of revenue for each dollar of operating loss? The reason is SaaS revenue is typically very high quality, paid up front, contracted for at least 1 year, has a low cost of maintenance, and most importantly is recurring. The recurrence means once you’ve got the customer, you do not lose them and they become an annuity. The median net dollar retention of these companies was 112% in Q4, meaning that in future years the revenue from each customer actually grows over time. Cash efficiency is one of the most important metrics measures in SaaS, and combined with net dollar retention, the two metrics are the greatest drivers of value in our view.
Thank you for your readership. Visit us at blossomstreetventures.com for more SaaS data and blogs. Email the author at sammy@blossomstreetventures.com
