Whether it’s fundraising or acquisitions, if you are unable to catch up with the fast-paced world of SaaS, fret not. The weekly roundup comes to your rescue as we curate the major happenings about the SaaS industry in one place.
Table of Contents
News of the week
Microsoft accelerates industry cloud strategy for healthcare with the acquisition of Nuance
The Redmond giant seems to have perfected the art of acquisitions with most of the companies it has purchased continuing to grow. The latest to join the list is Nuance Communications, a popular AI and voice assistant. The deal has been closed at a 23 percent premium on the share price of Nuance, valuating the acquisition at $19.7billion. This is Microsoft’s second biggest acquisition after LinkedIn, and will help it bolster its Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare efforts.
Related read: Why Microsoft’s new AI acquisition is a big deal
Dell is spinning out VMware in a deal expected to generate over $9B for the company
As has been reported before, Dell is hiving off VMware. Dell will be offering VMware shareholders a special dividend of $11.5 to $12 billion, that will generate somewhere between $9.3 and $9.7 billion for the tech giant.
Payables automation software Tipalti has acquired cloud procurement solutions provider Approve.com. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but they will help Tipalti in expanding its financial operations offerings.
TikTok rival Triller’s parent company has acquired customer engagement platform Amplify.AI. Interestingly, as part of the deal, Amplify’s co-founder Mahi de Silva will become the CEO of TrillerNet.
1Password expands into secrets management to help enterprises secure their infrastructure
Password management software 1Password is foraying into the “secrets management” space as it has acquired SecretHub. It’s a Dutch startup which was started in 2018 and helps enterprises in protecting enterprise secrets. SecretHub manages to do that by integrating with services that could have access to them such as Terrform, Kubernotes, and Ansible.
Oracle Cloud HCM adds “Journeys” for personalized HR guidance
Oracle has announced a new platform dubbed Journeys for HR teams to help them deliver personalized digital experiences for employees. Part of the Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) suite, the feature will help the company compete against the likes of Workday and Salesforce.
Vonage adds video engagement to contact center applications
VoIP provider Vonage has updated its Contact Center suite with a slew of features. These include video engagement, omnichannel chat, virtual assistant, and more. The app will also be connected to CRM providers such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.
Zoho launches new low code workflow automation product
Zoho provides a suite of business tools, and now it’s adding another offering in its portfolio. Dubbed Qntrl, it’s a low code workflow automation product.
SaaS companies that got the funding this week
Startup Degreed raises funding at $1.4billion value
HR software Degreed has closed a $153million round, valuing it at more than $1.4billion. In addition, its CEP Chris McCarthy will be stepping down to focus on health issue, and will be replaced by a former Box executive, Dan Levin. The funding was led by Sapphire Ventures and Riverwood Capital and will help the company in speeding up product development and focus on global expansion.
UserZoom helps companies in evaluating whether their designs are working or not working, and how to improve customer experience. The company wants to pioneer experience management as a category, in a similar vein as ERP or CRM. It also announced the acquisition of EnjoyHQ.
C2i, a genomics SaaS product to detect traces of cancer, raises $100M Series B
SaaS is everywhere; and this funding is a prime example of that. C2i Genomics’ software can detect residual disease to identify if Cancer can come back. The company has nabbed $100million Series B funding. Led by Casdin Capital, the funding will be used to accelerate clinical development and commercializing its C2-intelligence platform.
Sales scheduling platform Chili Piper raises $33M Series B funding led by Tiger Global
Appointment scheduling software for sales teams, Chili Piper, has raised $33million Series B funding. Led by Tiger Global, the Calendly rival is being used by the likes of Twilio, Gong, and more.
Altman brothers lead B2B payment startup Routable’s $30M Series B
Routable is a billing and invoicing software. It has gotten $30million funding from a slew of investors such as Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Jack Altman (CEO of Lattice), Aaron Levie (Box Co-founder and CEO), and Marc Benioff (Salesforce founder and CEO) among others.
OpenView leads Series B funding round in Encamp, the end-to-end compliance platform
Encamp makes EHS (environment, health, and safety) compliance easy for companies to implement. It has received $12million Series B funding from OpenView Partners.
Creator monetization and CRM startup Pico raises $6.5million
Creator tools are in demand, so it’s not a surprise to see Pico, a software that brings CRM-like capabilities to influencers, raising $6.5million funding. Led by Bullpen Capital, the company is offering tools like landing pages, pop-ups to collect email addresses, paid newsletters, tiered membership programs, and more for creators.
Must reads
How Pilot charted a course of not raising too much money
“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [Conversion Benchmark Report 2021]
A deep dive into value based pricing
Listen to
Scaling Zapier to $140million ARR and a $5billion valuation on $1.4million of funding, what founders misunderstand about fundraising & how founders should think about secondaries today with Wade Foster, founder & CEO @ Zapier
Zapier has been a bootstrapping success story, reaching to an enviable valuation of $5billion. In this episode, its co-founder and CEO Wade Foster discusses his journey, how it has managed remote working since its inception in 2012, challenges with scaling and more.
Loom CEO Joe Thomas on how speed & simplicity can fuel your flywheel
In this podcast, Loom’s CEO Joe Thomas talks all about the flywheel effect. He shares how the screen recording software used it to scale the product to 10million users without any paid marketing.
From $0-$80million ARR in 13 months with Hopin CMO Anthony Kennada
Virtual event software Hopin has grown tremendously amidst the pandemic. Its CMO Anthony Kennada shares his own journey to lead marketing at Hopin, its current numbers, and how it has continued to evolve.
Watch
SaaS pricing models explained (perfect tiered pricing and the subscription based business model)
In this video, host TK Kader explains the three principles that a SaaS business should know for planning their pricing. These principles will help you decide on tiered pricing and a subscription-based model.
