Highlights from The 2019 Cloud 100 Celebration

Back in 2015, we pitched the idea of recognizing the top 100 private cloud companies in the world to my friend and associate editor at Forbes, Alex Konrad. At the time the tech community and media were, by and large, focused on the enormous consumer tech companies while cloud companies were often overlooked for being seen as less sexy and too technical.

Last week we released our fourth Cloud 100 list, and today, I’m proud to report, the power of the cloud is simply undeniable. Across the industry, cloud companies are being celebrated for upending the way the world operates and changing the way we live, work, and collaborate—fueling innovation in not only tech, but also in every industry.

Front to back, left to right: Stephen Curry, Jeff Lawson of Twilio, Rachel Carlson of Guild Education, Kurt Rathmann of ScaleFactor, Matt Langdon of Sketch, Melanie Perkins of Canva, and Steve Miller of Bank of America Merrill Lynch at The 2019 Cloud 100 Celebration.

Furthermore, the industry has achieved unprecedented growth, even since we launched our inaugural list just four years ago. This year, the floor to even make the Cloud 100 was over $700 million, more than double what it was in 2016 and a record 65 private cloud unicorns are recognized on the 2019 Cloud 100. At this rate, within the next two years, it may take a billion-dollar valuation just to get on the list!

This same growth story has played out in the public markets. Since our last Cloud 100 in 2018, almost a dozen cloud companies were added to the public ranks representing over $50 billion of additional cloud market cap with many more in the works now. And, in the last year alone, we’ve seen over $90 billion dollars of acquisition activity in the cloud space as the legacy vendors have tried to buy their way into cloud and catch up with innovation.

The most important part of the Cloud 100 program is the growing community of cloud leaders we’ve brought together over the four past years. Together, our current and former Cloud 100 CEOs, Rising Star CEOs, and the public cloud CEOs, our Cloud 100 Judges, are leading the massive cloud revolution. Every year we bring these leaders together for the Cloud 100 Celebration. This year, we were honored to have a bit of fun and friendly competition with our host Aisha Tyler and honorary hype man, Stephen Curry.

I, along with my partners at Bessemer, Forbes, and Salesforce Ventures, are thrilled to be part of the journey. We cannot wait to celebrate the Cloud 100 community once again with you in 2020!

Here were some of my favorite moments of the night...

Jeff Lawson of Twilio and Kristina Shen of Bessemer in the heat of the moment during Cloud 100's gameshow, Clash of Clouds.

Host Aisha Tyler asks Kurt Rathmann of ScaleFactor, Stephen Curry, and Jennifer Tejada of PagerDuty, trivia questions in the final round of Clash of Clouds.