SaaS Startups

Blockchain Capital is a venture capital firm founded in 2014 focused on investing in blockchain and cryptocurrency companies. The firm has raised four successive funds, with notable investments in companies like Coinbase, Civic, and Argo, and famously conducted the world's first venture fund ICO in April 2017 that sold out in 30 minutes.

YAP is a SaaS platform for event applications launched in 2012 that serves the professional events industry (MICE - meetings, incentives, conferences, events). The company charges $400 per app per year with volume pricing up to 50 apps, and has published over 85,000 apps since launch while remaining profitable and bootstrapped with a remote team of five. Maria Seidman grew the company through unconventional guerrilla tactics, including sneaking into conferences as an attendee to sell directly to event organizers.

Ascentage is a 15-year-old budgeting and planning SaaS company founded in 2003 that started as on-premise software and recently underwent a multi-million dollar platform conversion to cloud-based subscription model. With 1,000 customers, 10,000 users, and $12 million in annual revenue, the company has achieved 80% retention while building through traditional inside sales and minimal paid marketing (approximately $100k/month spend). Barry Klapp's bootstrapped approach has delivered results with significantly less capital ($13.5 million raised) than competitors like Adaptive Insights, which raised $175 million.

Vidyard is a video marketing platform founded in 2010 that has grown to serve over 1,000 customers across three offices (Vancouver, Boston, Waterloo). The company has raised $70M in funding and is more than doubling year-over-year revenue while maintaining 85-90% gross margins through economies of scale and strategic product expansion. Growth is driven by personalized video prospecting, referrals, and a freemium Chrome extension called ViewedIt that has reached 100,000 users since October.

Santamint is building an information layer for cryptocurrency token economies, aiming to be the "Bloomberg of crypto." The team raised $2 million in their ICO (July 2017) and an additional $150,000 in presale, issuing their SAN token with dual revenue models: traditional SaaS subscriptions and crypto-based access via token staking. With 8 full-time employees, they plan to launch paid features within 6 months while currently building out their data infrastructure.

DemandBase is an account-based marketing platform founded in 2007 by Chris Ogola that has grown to serve 400-600 enterprise customers across financial services, tech, manufacturing, healthcare, and telecom. The company is targeting $100M+ ARR in 2017 with 50% year-over-year growth, 110% net revenue expansion, and has raised $156M in funding to continue expanding AI capabilities and international operations.

Matchcraft is a 20-year-old ad tech platform that helps businesses run programmatic search, display, and social campaigns across multiple channels. Operating as both a managed service (70% of revenue) and SaaS model, the company charges between 12-17% of media spend for managed services and up to 7% for SaaS. Under CEO Sandy Lowe since 2016, Matchcraft has grown to ~100 employees across 43 countries and processes over $100M in annual media spend, consistently growing at 2x the industry rate.

BuildFire is a no-code mobile app builder founded by Ian Blair in 2014 that allows non-technical users to create custom mobile applications. Starting from a white-label reseller model generating $25K/month in 2012, Ian built his own platform which launched in August 2014 and achieved $1M ARR by 2015. By December 2016, the company was generating approximately $250K/month in revenue with 1,000-5,000 customers, powered primarily by organic search traffic and retargeting.

Thunkable is a Y Combinator-backed no-code mobile app builder founded by MIT/Google engineer Arun Saigel in early 2016. The platform enables non-technical users to build mobile apps without coding, competing in a crowded space with a focus on underserved SMBs and individuals. Having raised $3.3M and built a team of 10 in San Francisco with millions of platform users, the company was preparing to monetize through a paywall charging users for premium features like analytics, in-app purchases, and app store deployment.

Full Circle Insights is a B2B SaaS company founded by Bonnie Crater and three co-founders in 2012 that helps marketing teams measure and track campaign impact on pipeline and revenue. Built on the Salesforce platform with just $22,000 in initial capital and sweat equity, the company has grown to $4M ARR with 150 enterprise customers, achieving a 90% renewal rate and a six-month CAC payback period through event-driven sales and partnerships.

Youths is a location-based mobile advertising company founded in 2008 that helps global brands target consumers at specific geographic locations like airports and retail outlets. By 2016, the bootstrapped company had grown to over $1M in annual revenue with a 15-person team based in Vietnam, serving approximately 30 agency customers through a CPM arbitrage model and partnership-driven sales strategy across 60+ countries.

MobFox is a mobile in-app supply-side platform (SSP) acquired by Amadame Media Group for approximately $12 million in 2014. The platform connects app publishers with demand-side platforms and advertisers, helping developers monetize their apps while optimizing ad delivery through SDK-based solutions. In 2015, MobFox processed $18 million in gross ad spend (keeping 17-20% in revenue), and by 2016 more than doubled that to $36 million, working with 20-30,000 publishers and 180+ DSPs.

Demand Jump is a SaaS platform that gives marketers 100% visibility into their competitive digital ecosystem and qualified traffic sources. Founded by Christopher Day and Sean Swigman (former CMO of Overstock.com) in February 2015, the company grew from $165k first-year revenue in 2016 to an $85k MRR run rate approaching $1M ARR by 2017, with 22 customers and 89% annual retention.

ConverSocial is an enterprise SaaS platform that helps large consumer brands deliver customer service through social media and mobile messaging channels. Founded by Josh March (who previously sold i-Platform to a UK agency in 2012), the company has raised $20 million in capital and serves approximately 250 enterprise customers including Google, Sprint, Hertz, and Hyatt Hotels with ARR exceeding $10 million.

Wealth Factory, founded by Garrett Gunderson in 2006, is a virtual family office for entrepreneurs doing $1-10M in revenue that helps them optimize cash flow and keep more of their earnings. After refocusing the company following a tragic plane crash that killed two co-founders, Gunderson built a consulting-based model where clients pay $10,000-$150,000 for comprehensive financial advisory services. The firm limits new client acquisition to 10 per month and focuses on deep customer intimacy with around 125-250 clients.

Yeti Data is an enterprise SaaS platform that creates a virtual data warehouse unifying customer touchpoints and providing AI-driven actionable insights. Founded by Victor Sherba in 2014 with $1.5M in convertible note funding, the company spent 2-3 years in deep development before launching go-to-market efforts in earnest last year. With less than half a dozen customers paying $250K-$500K annually, Yeti Data is approaching $1M ARR and seeking a Series A at a $15-20M pre-money valuation.

Muscat is a marketing performance management SaaS platform founded in 2014 by Oscar Nelson and a co-founder. After bootstrapping for a year with $200k in personal savings, they launched a beta product in 2015 with $100k in revenue, then grew 5x to $500k in 2016. By mid-2017, they reached $100k MRR with 60 customers and a $25k average annual contract value, having raised $1.2M from angels and seed funds.

M-Sites, founded by Scott East in 2003, provides data management and performance reporting services for large marketing departments. The company operates on a hybrid SaaS and professional services model, charging based on data volume (rows) integrated through APIs, FTP, or email, with free platform licenses to drive adoption and increase data integration opportunities. With less than 20 clients but an impressive $250,000 average contract value, sub-5% annual churn, and nearly $3.5M ARR, M-Sites has achieved strong unit economics and healthy gross margins (80%+ on platform, 70% on professional services) while remaining bootstrapped and largely relying on word-of-mouth growth.

Ripple is an enterprise blockchain solution for global payments, founded by early Bitcoin advocates who pivoted from pure cryptocurrency to practical financial interoperability. Led by Stefan Thomas (CTO and early team member), Ripple has raised $94 million and grown to 170+ people, positioning itself as the "Zapier for global payments" by enabling banks and payment providers to interoperate seamlessly.

Socido is a B2B SaaS platform that helps B2B marketers find prospects on social media showing real-time behavioral interest and engage them through automated social and email nurturing campaigns. Founded by Asim Badshah (formerly of Uptown Treehouse agency), the company is backed by Techstars Ventures, Vulcan Capital, and Divergent Ventures. Currently at $2.5M ARR (~$200k MRR) with a 20-person team, Socido has shifted from outbound/ABM to a product-led growth model using free trials to build pipeline, focusing on SMB/mid-market B2B companies.