The talks about tech bubble being burst are seemingly more real than ever. While the temperament in the SaaS ecosystem seems strong, we’re seeing the effects of the pandemic wearing off affecting SaaS stock prices, funding rounds, and more. The real implications of the drawdown can only be understood later, for now, let’s take a look at everything that’s worthy of your attention in the world of SaaS.
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News of the week
Stripe flexes its fintech muscle with Financial Connections to pull banking data automatically
The world’s most valuable startup – Stripe – has introduced a feature dubbed Financial Connections. As the name indicates, it allows Stripe’s customers to directly connect with their customer’s bank accounts. This enables things like verifying accounts for payments or payouts, checking balances, etc. which could be used for underwriting risk for loans, tracking spending patterns, and more.
Twilio rises after Q1 results top estimates
Customer engagement company Twilio announced its quarterly results, where it broke even with its $874.5million in revenue, which increased by 48% y-o-y. For the second quarter, the company expects revenue between $912 and $922million.
Shopify tumbles below pre-pandemic levels after huge profit miss
After explosive growth amidst the pandemic, tech companies are getting a reality check. E-commerce software Shopify’s share price tumbled by 14.7 percent to $413.64, which is a 70 percent decline this year. As per its quarterly results for Q1, Shopify’s revenue grew by 22 percent to $1.2billion.
The company also announced the acquisition of Deliverr, a delivery startup, for $2.billion.
Publicis Groupe acquires e-commerce software company Profitero
Leading advertising holding company Publicis Groupe has announced the acquisition of Profitero, an e-commerce software company. Profitero offers software for e-commerce companies to help them compare prices with competitors, monitor product availability, and track customer ratings and reviews. The deal is pegged around $200million.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
Cloud infrastructure access management startup Teleport has entered the unicorn territory with its $110million Series C investment. Led by Bessemer Venture Partners, the startup will be using the amount towards expanding its GTM motion globally along with investing in R&D.
Tailscale lands $100million to ‘transform’ enterprise VPNs with mesh technology
With security becoming more important than ever, Tailscale, built atop WireGuard protocol, aims to make zero trust systems easy to implement. It has closed a $100million Series B funding round co-led by CRV and Insight Partners. The money will be utilized towards expanding the marketing and sales teams, as well as building additional product features.
App performance monitoring platform Sentry nabs $90million
Sentry, an application performance monitoring platform, has nabbed $90million in Series E funding. The round was co-led by Bond and Accel, and the company announced that its valuation has tripled to $3billion and it’ll be opening a new hub in Europe along with increasing its employee base.
Chilean fintech Xepelin wants LatAm businesses to get paid
Chile-based Xepelin aims to make B2B payments easier. It has received a $111million Series B investment led by Avenir and Kaszek. The amount raised will go towards expanding to more countries, hiring employees, and launching new products.
LinearB lands $50million to boost software developer efficiency through metrics and automation
Software developer intelligence platform LinearB has gotten $50million funding as part of the Series B round. Led by Tribe Capital, the startup will be using the funding infusion for scaling its engineering team, accelerating its developer efficiency platform, and building out customer success, sales, and marketing teams.
Lumos wants to build an app store for the enterprise
With the proliferation of SaaS apps, it’s difficult for an organization to keep a track of the ones that are being used. Lumos – coming out of stealth – is aiming to solve that as it combines security functionality like role-based access control along with showing the spending reports. Lumos has raised $30million from the likes of A16z, Neo, Lachy Groom, and more.
OpenView leads $18million Series A in Kintent, a security and compliance trust management platform
Security compliance such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001 has become quite important for companies to reach out to more enterprise buyers. Kintent helps companies with the same with its Trust Cloud platform. It has now raised $18million in Series A funding from OpenView Partners.
While PLG is continuing to increase in popularity, most startups wonder how they can get their non-paying users to subscribe. Toplyne solves that by identifying promising leads and what kind of GTM strategies can work to entice them. It has closed a $15million Series A round led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India.
Must reads
Dell’s multi-cloud bet boils down to this: Compute will follow data
Inventing product-led growth: how PLG went from an idea to the biggest trend in software
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Being the CEO of a service and a SaaS company on their way to $10million
Ceo of Bulletproof and Defense.com Oliver Pinson-Roxburgh shares about the origins of his companies, how he’s managing to lead two companies at the same time, and more. He also talks about raising capital and the path to $10million ARR.
5 lessons on building your sales organization for scale with Than Hancock, EVP of Sales @ Podium and Carlie Adams, Head of West Coast Sales @ Podium
In this episode, Podium’s EVP of Sales, Than Hancock and its Regional Sales Manager, Carlie Adams discuss growing sales organizations for companies across all growth stages. They also talk about the challenges and opportunities of setting up sales teams, especially during the hyper-growth phase.
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The SaaS chronicles
India’s SaaS ecosystem is growing at an unprecedented pace. This video showcases leading SaaS players about their journeys, growth opportunities, and what they have learned amidst the pandemic. They also share about opportunities in India and the global landscape.
