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Bessemer SaaS and Cloud Computing News

3.3.09 Let Our Start-ups Bail Us Out (washingtonpost.com)

11.23.08 LinkedIn CEO touts growth of network (San Francisco Chronicle)

10.28.08 Announcing Applications on LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

10.22.08 Online business network LinkedIn raises more money (Los Angeles Times)

9.4.08 LinkedIn Tunes to CNBC (redherring.com)

7.23.08 Pure Networks Acquired by Cisco for $120M (www.nwinnovation.com)

Full Bessemer 2008 CEO Summit on SaaS presentations available. 

Software and SaaS events of Interest
Bessemer Software and Venture blogs

SaaS Practice Overview

In addition to Bessemer's long history of successful enterprise software investing, we have been particularly focused on the emergence of Software as a Service (SaaS). We believe SaaS is the most important trend in the software industry of the decade. We have been fortunate to work with many of the early pioneers in this high growth market segment, and continue to invest actively to grow our current portfolio.

Please feel free to submit your business plan or executive summary to saasvc@bvp.com.


Bessemer's Top 10 Laws for Being "SaaS-y"

  1. Your key monthly business metrics are: CMRR (Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue), Churn, and Cash flow - “Bookings” is for suckers

  2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer LifeTime Value (CLTV) are the best indicators of long term value creation

  3. Tune before you scale: the Sales Learning Curve is even more critical for SaaS and it takes at least $300k MRR to climb it. Stop at three sales reps until at least two of them are making $100K MRR quotas

  4. Separate your “hunters” and “farmers” and pay them all on CMRR growth

  5. SaaS is a whole new ecosystem where traditional IT channels don’t work – Focus your business development efforts on business services channels, but you will need to sell directly for a long time as these new set of partners are not easy to ramp-up

  6. By definition, your sales prospects are online - Savvy online marketing is a core competence (sometimes the only one) of every successful SaaS business

  7. Stay local - Prove your business in North America first. Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand. Save Asia for post-IPO

  8. Single instance, multi-tenant, single datacenter - Have only one version of the code in production. Really. “Just say no” to on-premise deployments

  9. The most important part of Software-as-a-Service isn’t “Software” it’s “Service”! 

  10. Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. Load up for the long trip and pace your consumption of calories!


Past SaaS Investments Current SaaS Portfolio
Investment Team
Stephen Bluestein Philippe Botteri David Cowan Byron Deeter Brian Feinstein
Stephen
Bluestein
Philippe
Botteri
David
Cowan
Byron
Deeter
Brian
Feinstein
Bob Goodman Jeremy Levine Mark Lurie Daniela Nemerenco Sarah Tavel
Bob
Goodman
Jeremy
Levine
Mark
Lurie
Daniela
Nemerenco
Sarah
Tavel
Lisa Wu
Lisa
Wu
BVP SaaS Articles and Presentations Bessemer's 2009 CEO Summit on SaaS Presentations Bessemer's 2008 CEO Summit on SaaS Presentations

Several presentations are in the password protected section of this website. If you do not have a BVP password but are affiliated with a SaaS company and would like a copy of the article, please email saasvc@bvp.com.

How Bessemer SaaS portfolio companies can help your business

Bessemer's long history of successful enterprise software investing alerted us to the emergence of Software as a Service (SaaS). We have been fortunate to work with many of the early pioneers in this high growth market segment, and continue to invest actively in it.

Bob Goodman joined Bessemer in 1998 and is the founding partner of Bessemer's investment office in Larchmont, New York. 

Brian Feinstein joined BVP as an Analyst in 2008. He works out of the Larchmont office. Most recently, Brian was the co founder and Managing Partner of Opera New Media, an Internet consulting firm with a client list that included

 BroadSoft is the leading provider of service delivery and creation systems for next generation communication networks.

Byron Deeter is a Partner in BVP's Menlo Park office after having previously been a successful entrepreneur, investor, and consultant. At Bessemer, he focuses on  investments in the software,  Software as a Service (SaaS) , Internet, and gaming sectors.  Most recently, Byron was an executive at IBM, as a result of

Cornerstone OnDemand provides a comprehensive suite of talent management solutions for learning, performance, compensation, succession and compliance management to meet the human resource development needs of business and education .

Counterpane Systems is a data security monitoring service that monitors the firewalls and intrusion detection products protecting corporate networks.

Cyota is the leading player in the anti-fraud space, specializing in financial institutions. It specializes in fraud related to the Internet, such as online banking fraud, eCommerce fraud and phishing. In December 2005, Cyota was acquired by RSA Security (NASDAQ:RSAS).

Daniela Nemerenco joined BVP’s New York office as an Analyst in 2008. In the summer of 2007, she was a Summer Analyst with the firm, focusing on the digital media, software, and high technology sectors.  Previously, Daniela worked for the Harvard MIT

David Cowan joined Bessemer in 1992. Of his 45 early-stage investments, 18 were acquired and 19 went public.

Eloqua is the industry leader in demand generation applications.

Endeca's innovative search and navigation platform provides unprecedented online data exploration that exposes the full richness and potential of online information.

Intacct provides on demand accounting, business and financial management applications over the web using a Software As A Service model.

Intego's software products protect the Macintosh computers of more than a million users in 60 countries from the dangers of the Internet.

Jeremy is a Partner with Bessemer Venture Partners. He focuses primarily on software and services investments. Prior to joining BVP in 2001, Jeremy was Vice President of Operations at Dash, an Internet software publisher. Jeremy joined Dash from AEA Investors, a private equity firm with an expertise in leveraged an

 In 1997 BVP's David Cowan led the Series A round in Keynote, a provider of Internet performance data and diagnostic services. The company went public in 1999 as NASDAQ KEYN.

 The nation's first ID theft protection company.

A business networking Internet site.

Lisa Wu is an Analyst in the Larchmont office. Most recently, Lisa co founded and managed BANZAI Fresh, a startup that provided high quality, healthy, low priced foods to school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Previously, she was

 Mark Lurie is an Analyst in the Larchmont office. Most recently, Mark founded and served as CEO of Abroad101.com, which provides back-office support to universities for their study abroad programs. He has also been an analyst at Deutsche Bank’s Global Markets division. Mark holds a Bachelor’s degree cum laude i

The first company to offer a service that reliably and transparently enables global sub second response time to Web enabled applications through Internet Optimization providing LAN like performance over WANs. It was acquired by Akamai (NASDAQ AKAM)in 2007.

Parallels is a global leader in virtualization and automation software that helps consumers, businesses, and service providers optimize their use of technology. The company's software powers more than 130,000 servers and 650,000 desktops worldwide.

 Perimeter provides comprehensive, on-demand messaging and security services to thousands of businesses.

Philippe Botteri is a Senior Associate in BVP’s Menlo Park office. Working primarily with Byron Deeter, he focuses on the enterprise software and internet sectors. Most recently, Philippe was a senior engagement manager at McKinsey & Co.’s high-tech practice in Silicon Valley, where he focused in the software,

Postini provides email security and management for the enterprise. BVP's David Cowan invested in the company's later rounds and served on the board. In July 2007, Postini was acquired by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

 PSINet was the first venture backed Internet Service Provider in the world. BVP's David Cowan and Felda Hardymon invested in its early rounds starting in 1993. PSINet went public in May 1995 as NASDAQ PSIX.

Register.com provides domain name registration and related Internet services. BVP's David Cowan invested in the company in 1999 it went public as NASDAQ RCOM the following year.

The leading RFID analytics and applications company.

Sarah Tavel is an Associate working with Jeremy Levine in the Larchmont office. She focuses on the software and Internet sectors and has been closely involved in the Metalogix, Yodle, Cornerstone OnDemand, Onestop, and CPower investments. Sarah joined BVP in 2006 as an Analyst with responsibility for identifying se

 SelectMinds helps its clients build relationships among their employees, alumni, and other key constituents.

Stephen Bluestein is a Senior Associate in BVP’s New York office. He works with Bob Goodman, focusing on opportunities in software, communications, and healthcare IT. He serves on the board of  Ziff David Enterprise  and is closely involved with the firm’s investments in  GTS Central Europe ,  Syncsort , and  Netsmart

 Telocity was an early provider of residential broadband internet service provider. BVP's David Cowan co led the first venture round in 1998. Telocity went public as NASDAQ TLCT on March 31, 2001 (the last IPO of the dotcom era). Hughes'

Trigo creates enterprise software solutions for Product Information Management. In 2004, IBM (NYSE IBM) acquired the company.

VeriSign is the leading provider of trusted infrastructure services. David Cowan co-founded the company in 1995 as a spin-out from RSA, and served as VeriSign's initial Chairman and CFO. The company went public in 1998 (NASDAQ:VRSN).