What's Hot in Enterprise IT/VC - Issue #133
Salesforce was down for hours because of a bad database script reminds us of the amazing aspect of cloud scale but how also one issue can affect so many; reminders for founders that you don’t have to do it like everyone else - minimal capital can get you to profitability with a big number ($50mm revenue for Zapier) or a solid exit with VMWare (Bitnami); Fastly has a great IPO and once again shows the power of developer love
Scaling Startups
The Office of the Future is No Office at All, Says Startup -
once VCs did not want remote offices but the clear wave of the future is partially or even fully distributed teams, easier to build from start - collaborative tools, amazing talent anywhere, etc - “Software-development startup GitLab is extreme, even for Silicon Valley: It has no headquarters and everyone works remotely, even the CEO.”
Bitnami Blog: VMware to acquire Bitnami
for the founders out there, great example of “companies are bought and not sold” and acquisition also highlights importance of “multi-cloud” - we’ll see more of these acquisitions in future for sure - “As part of the fundraising process, we were approached by several vendors in the space to make strategic investments or, in some cases, join forces. While this was not our original goal, as part of the conversations that we had during this process, we realized that VMware would be the ideal partner for us. We both believe in a Kubernetes and multi-cloud future. We both share large enterprise customers, including cloud service providers. We both are building products and services to help companies navigate this multi-platform, multi-vendor world with a focus on enterprises. VMware already has more than 500,000 customers globally!
Enterprise Tech
Everyone is an Analyst: Opportunities in Operational Analytics
great video from a16z deal partner Jad Naous as he looks at how this transformation will impact information workers in enterprise, what the new decision-making tools coming are, and what kinds of new opportunities that will bring for start ups.
Zapier’s Unusual Path to Profitability — The Information
raised $1.3mm venture to get to $50mm revenue and profitability - pretty amazing run thus far - “Zapier, a 7-year-old startup whose software connects different types of applications to automate personal computing tasks, has taken a different path to profitability than most Silicon Valley companies. It doesn’t have a sales team or a main office, and its CEO, Wade Foster, made headlines two …”
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100 Enterprise Blockchain Startups Paint Vivid Picture Of Changing Landscape
Proud to be partnered with @RMB @mstatelabs - must read on what’s really happening in enterprise and blockchain, net net once hype has worn off, the real builders are here and quietly putting projects into production - more to come!
3 investments Microsoft is making to improve identity management
the push for passwordless security and FIDO standards is building, Google cloud said it was one of top 5 priorities this year and Microsoft is pushing this aggressively as well
Markets
5 Interesting Learnings from Fastly. As It Gets Ready to IPO.
from Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) - one of top learnings is no surprise for the readers here - “Developers control a lot of spend today. A lot of enterprise-grade spend.”
Fastly shares rocket as much as 60% in IPO debut
enterprise IPOs still hot with Fastly (who competes against the likes of Amazon and Google and Akamai) which help companies more quickly deliver their content to customers, ending market cap around $2 billion
Will Slack Be Another Shocker?
Slack pursuing on a direct listing but growth slowing - will be interesting to see how the pricing works out in market - “But although that includes 88,000 paid customers, these grew just 8.6% sequentially in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2019. That is well below the 11% growth reported in the previous quarter and an average of 11.2% over the last seven quarters reported. More modest growth in paid customers in the fiscal fourth quarter came despite a sequential increase in marketing spending.”
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity unicorn, files to go public
will be interesting to see how the market receives this when it goes out - While revenues are growing at an impressive rate, from $53 million in 2017 to $119 million in 2018 to $250 million in the year ending January 31, 2019, its spending is far outweighing its gross profit. Most recently, the company posted a gross profit of $163 million on total operating expenses of about $300 million. Its total losses are increasing year-over-year from $91 million in 2017, to $135 million in 2018 and $140 million in 2019.
boldstart
smallstep - Instincts, Fast Cars, and Modern Security - Why I Joined smallstep
congrats! excited to have Mike Maxey (former Pivotal) onboard @smallsteplabs to bring #zerotrust and automated cryptographic identity for everything (humans, services, applications, functions, devices, etc.)
By Ed Sim
Ed Sim's weekly readings and notes on VC, software, and scaling startups - #enterprise #seed #DeveloperFirst #IntelligentAutomation #DataInfra #CloudNative #Cybersecurity
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