SaaS Startups

Harvester is a product management platform that centralizes user feedback, feature prioritization, and roadmap communication in one place. Founded by Valentin Huang and a team of three, the company launched in early 2018 with $15k in grants and love money and has grown to 100+ beta users in France. They're measuring stickiness through daily usage metrics and plan to launch pricing in summer, targeting starting plans at €100 for small teams.

Advanced Solutions International (ASI), founded in 1991 by Bob Alves, is a software company serving nonprofits globally with an ERP, CRM, and website solution. The company is transitioning from traditional on-premise licensing ($60M total revenue) to pure-play SaaS, with their cloud business growing 60% year-over-year to $5M ARR from ~$300k/month a year ago. With 375 employees across three continents, 500+ SaaS customers, and a direct sales model supplemented by 100 business partners, ASI maintains exceptional retention (95%+ customer retention, targeting 101% net revenue retention) and is cash-flow positive after raising $56M.

Study Tree is an AI-powered academic coaching platform that helps colleges improve student retention by predicting at-risk students and intervening before they fail out. Founded by Ethan Kaiser in 2016, the company grew from $5k MRR a year ago to $30k MRR through enterprise direct sales to universities, reaching 5-20 customers paying $25k-$500k annually depending on institution size. The team of 6 is now cash flow positive and preparing to raise $750k on a convertible note with a $6M cap.

Intermix is a SaaS platform that provides visibility into data pipelines and lakes, helping enterprise data teams monitor and optimize their cloud data infrastructure. Launched in late 2016, the company achieved its first dollar of revenue within six months by leveraging founder network and cold outreach. Growing at over 12% monthly with 25 customers, $1M ARR, and 100% net revenue retention, Intermix has raised $5M across two rounds and is approaching profitability with healthy 4-month payback periods on customer acquisition.

NeoReach is a social intelligence platform that analyzes influencer marketing and sponsored content performance for Fortune 500 brands like Walmart, Amazon, and NBC. The company launched in early 2014 and reached product-market fit around 2015-2016, growing to over 100 customers generating approximately $12M ARR ($1M MRR) with 120% net revenue retention and healthy 2-3X year-over-year growth. Founded by Jesse Lyme Gruber (a Thiel Fellow), NeoReach achieved profitability while raising only $4M in capital, positioning itself as a rare profitable enterprise SaaS business targeting large-scale influencer marketing attribution.

GroupFio is a bootstrapped SaaS platform that helps retailers and distributors manage omnichannel commerce and increase profitable sales through data analytics. Founded in 2010 by Ravi Srinivasan, the company has grown to 75 customers generating $100k MRR with 45 team members, achieving profitability with ~10% EBITDA margins and 5% annual revenue churn. They employ a targeted LinkedIn outreach strategy focusing on mid-market retailers ($50M-$500M revenue) experiencing omnichannel challenges, with high-touch implementation fees ($70k-$100k) driving quick customer payback.

Fizna is a SaaS platform launched in 2015 that functions as an 'autocomplete for 3D design,' helping engineers and manufacturers avoid redesigning components from scratch by searching their internal design databases. Originally built to address IP protection in 3D models, the company pivoted to engineering when customers recognized its value for design efficiency. With 15 enterprise customers, $2M raised, and a team of 15 in Ohio, Fizna grew from zero revenue a year ago to approaching $1M ARR through direct enterprise sales.

QZM is a SaaS platform helping museums and cultural organizations engage visitors through digital tour guides and membership solutions. Founded by Brendan Sieko in August 2014, the company has grown from 3-4 pilot customers in 2015 to 175 paying customers generating $105k MRR, tripling revenue year-over-year. With $1.5M raised and cashflow positive for the past year, QZM demonstrates strong unit economics with <5% annual churn and net revenue retention above 100%.

Sync BNB is a SaaS platform that helps vacation rental owners and managers avoid double bookings by syncing listings across multiple channels. Founded by Alexander Garavitis and Petros in January 2018, the company grew from zero to $15K MRR in 11 months, managing 1200 rentals across 400 owners. With $580K raised, a team of 9 in Athens, and a 3-month payback period on a $60 CAC, they're burning $15K monthly but have solid runway as they aim to hit $50K MRR before their next equity round.

Thopos is a SaaS platform for youth sports organizations to manage registrations, payments, scheduling, and member communications. Founded in 2014 by Shrinni Shidratti, the company bootstrapped for years with a $250k friends and family round, reaching 125 paying customers and ~$5.5k MRR with 10% annual churn by the time of this interview.

CattleCrush is a SaaS platform for livestock operations to manage feeding data and herd management through a hardware-software combo (Bluetooth scale on feed wagon connected to iPad). Dane Cooper launched the company in 2015 after spending 7 years in Silicon Valley focused on row crop optimization, recognizing livestock as an underserved $40B+ market. Today with 850 direct customers at $150/month, the company generates $127k MRR with exceptional retention (less than 5% annual churn), having raised $2.7M in capital and built a 20-person team.

Olio is a UK-based talent acquisition SaaS platform founded in 1995 that uses AI to help enterprise companies find, engage, and hire candidates quickly. Now a public company with ~400 customers and a $13M ARR run rate, Olio maintains 98% gross revenue retention and over 100% net revenue retention, with particular strength in financial services and government sectors (50% of UK police forces use their technology).

Cascade is a B2B SaaS platform that helps companies turn strategy from conceptual planning into measurable execution. Founded in 2013 by Tom Wright, the company has grown to over 1,000 customers generating approximately $450,000 in monthly recurring revenue (up from $200,000 a year prior), maintaining 120% net revenue retention. The company is bootstrapped with $50K founder investment and has achieved profitability while relying primarily on organic SEO growth for customer acquisition.

OneIO is a B2B integration hub enabling business service providers to integrate subcontractors and internal teams without technical development. The company has grown to 40 enterprise customers with $180k MRR (up 80% YoY from $95k) and operates at break-even with exceptionally low 0.1% annual revenue churn and a 2.2 LTV:CAC ratio. Recently raised $1.4M in Series A funding to scale the 15-person team based in Finland and the UK.

Legasys is a compliance management software company with 500 customers across India and 44 other countries, generating approximately $5 million in annual recurring revenue ($400k MRR). The company operates on a hybrid model with 85% one-time fees and 15% SaaS subscription revenue ($9 per user per month), maintaining healthy 12-20% EBITDA margins. Founded over 12 years ago with only $2 million raised to date, Legasys was planning to raise a $5 million bridge round in Q1-Q2 2019 to fund product development and sales expansion.

Maestro is a SaaS platform that allows course creators to launch their courses in minutes, founded by Justin Burns in December 2017. The company reached $20k MRR with 200 customers paying ~$100/month within a year through a bootstrapped model, primarily leveraging 70% of customer acquisition via affiliate webinars with 30% perpetual commissions. Currently profitable with a small team of 6 and 5% monthly revenue churn, Justin is exploring raising capital and expanding into enterprise while maintaining focus on solving content creation challenges.

Braze (formerly Appboy) is a customer engagement platform founded in 2011 that helps large consumer-scale companies orchestrate personalized messaging across multiple channels. With 600 enterprise customers paying $100k+ ACVs, the company has grown to ~$60M ARR (5M/month) with a net revenue retention of ~140%, demonstrating strong expansion revenue from existing customers. Having raised $170M total and grown to 300 employees, Braze is positioned to reach $100M+ ARR within the next year.

Perfect Cloud is a bootstrapped unified cloud security platform focused on identity management, single sign-on, and data rights management launched in 2015. The company has grown to 850 customers generating $1.7M MRR ($20M ARR) with a highly efficient CAC of $150-200 for $2k/month customers, primarily through word-of-mouth growth. Despite turning down acquisition offers exceeding $35M, the founders prioritize innovation and data privacy over exit, reinvesting cash flow into blockchain R&D and patent development.

Sean Clark sold his previous company, Invoice Share (an accounts receivable automation tool), for approximately $400,000-$500,000 and launched HighLevel six months ago to help marketing agencies close more leads through automation. The platform provides multi-channel lead nurturing (email, text, phone, voicemail), reviews management, appointment booking, and reputation management. With 10 agency customers paying $300/month each ($3,000 MRR), zero churn, and a bootstrap investment of $100,000, he's building a lean team of two and planning growth through affiliate partnerships with larger platforms.

Branzuka is a self-service programmatic advertising platform launched in 2015 that democratizes TV advertising by enabling small businesses to run targeted ads on OTT platforms like Sling and Roku—previously only available to large enterprises. The company grew from 400 users and $40K revenue in 2015 to 25,000 users and $1.5M in 2016, with guidance for $5M gross revenue in 2017, while raising $4.5M and closing a $7M Series A at a $20M+ pre-money valuation.