Featured Stories
Profitable from Day One : How a Bootstrapped SaaS Found a Successful Exit
“My key priority was securing a buyer capable of both shaping a long-term strategic vision for DropFunnels and seamlessly transitioning ownership. The team at FE International had already identified the perfect buyer within their extensive network, ensuring a perfect match for the company’s future growth. ”
Access our latest Market Reports
SEC Approves New Exchange, SugarCRM Acquires Salesfusion, Away Lands $1.4 billion Valuation: Newsletter May 17, 2019
The SEC has recently approved a new national securities exchange, Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), in response to regulatory criticism from top tech figures. Dubbed the Silicon Valley Stock Exchange, the new trading platform seeks to remove the pressure surrounding the short-term profit-focused mindset of recent IPOs. The LTSE is backed by major Valley leaders like VC Marc Andreessen, and is set to commence trading in late 2019.
Uber Prices IPO at $45, Facebook Launches New Advertising Tools: Newsletter May 10, 2019
In digital marketing news this week, Facebook launched its new Automated Ads platform to help small businesses use Facebook advertising to their advantage. New tools include an ad generator to test different versions, video editing tools, appointment booking and targeting recommendations based on the company’s page. Small businesses without advertising resources are the most likely to see an increase in promotional performance.
Shopify Posts Stronger Than Expected Q1’19 Earnings
Shopify has released its Q1’19 earnings report, posting higher-than-anticipated profits driven by strong growth in subscription revenue. A number of factors, like Shopify’s increase in the total number of new merchants on the platform and several initiatives to make the merchant experience more sophisticated, contributed to the e-commerce platform giant’s strong growth in the quarter.
Facebook Q1 Earnings and FTC Fine, Q1 Economic Growth Results, Google and Verizon Partnership, Patrick McKenzie’s Successful SaaS Exits: Newsletter April 26, 2019
Facebook released its Q1’19 earnings report this week, announcing an allocation of $5 billion towards an investigative fine by the FTC into the Cambridge Analytica data breach. Of the reported $15.07 billion in Q1 revenues (up 26% year-on-year), 99% came from advertising.
Zoom IPO Opens 80% Up, Amazon Leaves Chinese Market, Tax Season and a new $710K SaaS Listing: Newsletter April 19, 2019
Zoom, the popular videoconferencing software company, listed on the NASDAQ this week at $60.76, a stock market value of $15.9 billion. Zoom is unique to several of the recent software IPO due to its profitability (2018 saw net income of $7.58 million). Taking its opening price market cap, Zoom trading at c.50 times its enterprise value, by far the highest multiple for a US software company..
Jeff Bezos Shareholder Letter, PagerDuty IPO and Google De-Indexing Issue (plus a $195K PaaS listing): Newsletter April 12, 2019
Jeff Bezos this week released Amazon’s annual shareholder letter, highlighting the growing ratio of third- to first-party Amazon merchandise sales. Over the history of the company, third-party sales have grown at a 52% lifetime CAGR to now represent 58% of the platform’s total merchandise sales (or $160 billion), compared to the first-party sales’ CAGR of 25%. Bezos also noted that independent seller sales on Amazon continue growing faster than on eBay, which in the same period have grown 20% (reaching $95 billion total).
Productiv Raises $8M Funding, Exago BI SaaS Milestone, Google Eliminates a Significant Markup Tag: Newsletter April 5, 2019
Cloud-based dashboard provider Productiv has raised $8 million in a new round of funding this week. This influx of capital will be allocated to solving the growing problem of SaaS app usage transparency through their dashboard which tracks single-sign-on, redundant and expired license apps across an organization – which continues to compound as the rate of enterprise SaaS adoption rises.
Lyft IPO Results, Microsoft Offers Patent Protection and AWS Launches Latin America Location: Newsletter March 29, 2019
Rideshare giant Lyft set its IPO price per share at $72 ahead of its NASDAQ debut this morning, raising $2.3 billion at a $24 billion valuation. This is the largest technology IPO since Snap, which was valued at $33 billion when it went public in 2017.
Lyft IPO Oversubscribed, SaaS IPO Market Review and Instagram Launches Checkout (plus a $1.1M SaaS listing)
Reuters this week announced that Lyft’s IPO is now oversubscribed due to higher than anticipated investor interest. Based on commitments made by investors so far, it is likely that Lyft will exceed its current $23 billion valuation, indicating that investors are less concerned with uncertainty in Lyft’s profitability and more interested in ensuring they don’t miss out on this high-profile SaaS IPO.
