usage-based Startups

Rwango is a proximity marketing SaaS company founded in 2014 that uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth beacons to help retailers send targeted marketing messages to nearby customers. The bootstrap startup has deployed across 500 retail locations worldwide, generating approximately $15,000 MRR with a pay-per-location ($25-30/month) business model. With zero churn and only a 7-person team based in India, Rwango is exploring blockchain integration and expanding into logistics and apparel tracking.

Percolata is a SaaS platform that helps physical retailers optimize their sales team scheduling using proprietary deep learning technology and sensor data. Founded in 2011 by Greg Tanaka, the company struggled for five years to find product-market fit before pivoting from selling sensor data subscriptions to helping retailers schedule their existing staff more effectively. With 40 retail logos and 18.4 million scheduled hours under contract at $0.85 per hour, they're approaching $10M in annual revenue and experiencing rapid organic growth through word-of-mouth referrals.

Sales Scout is a B2B sales intelligence and data-as-a-service company founded in 2014 that provides verified contact data and lead information to enterprise customers. When Chris Kack joined as CEO in March 2017 at a $35k/month run rate, he scaled the company to $260k/month by December 2017 (24% month-over-month growth) through product diversification, outsourced human verification teams, and aggressive expansion among existing customers. The company maintains exceptional unit economics with <2% annual revenue churn, negative net revenue churn, ~100 customers, and $280k monthly recurring revenue with virtually zero marketing spend.

OwnerIQ, founded by Jay Habegger in 2007, is a programmatic advertising platform that enables transparent data exchange between brands and retailers. The company serves ~600 active brands monthly (1,000 total) and has raised $40 million in venture capital, generating approximately $70 million in annual revenue with 55-60% gross margins. Growth has been driven by enterprise direct sales to major retailers and brands seeking predictable, recurring revenue from data partnerships.

Answer Media is an ad tech company founded by Lauren Wilson and Eric Hayes that operates as a diversified video advertising platform. The company processes north of $10 million in annual ad spend through its network, generating well into the eight figures in revenue. They've expanded beyond their core ad network business to include a virtual video studio with 200 freelance contributors and technology solutions focused on publisher monetization.

Volio is a social trading platform that enables groups of friends, family, and colleagues to invest together while splitting trading fees. Founded by Thomas Beatty, a recovering investment banker, the platform addresses barriers to entry by lowering costs, enabling diversification, and leveraging collective intelligence. After raising $5 million and launching soft in March of last year, Volio has attracted hundreds of real-money users and is now expanding into crypto and exploring white-label partnerships with credit unions and community banks.

Movable Inc, founded in 2010 by Vivek Sharma, is a cloud-based SaaS platform that helps enterprise brands generate intelligent visual content for email marketing powered by real-time customer data. The company has grown to 500 customers (including Starbucks, Nike, Hilton, Gap, and American Express) with $40M ARR, 50-100% YoY growth, and 110% net revenue retention—all while raising just $14M in capital over 13+ years. Their efficient go-to-market strategy, CPM-based pricing on email opens, and under-12-month payback period have enabled disciplined, capital-efficient scaling across 250 employees globally.

TransferWise launched in January 2011 after founder Tavit Hinrikus experienced expensive international money transfers while working at Skype. The company got its first customer (sending 2000 pounds) within 15 minutes of a TechCrunch article and grew to 4 million users processing $3.9-4 billion monthly by 2018. TransferWise achieved profitability while scaling globally, expanding into borderless accounts and debit cards to disrupt traditional banking.

SiteWit is a self-serve marketing platform that automates Google AdWords and Google Shopping campaigns for small businesses, built by co-founders Ricardo Lasa and Don over three years starting in 2010 and launched in 2013. The company grew from $150k MRR in August 2017 to $300k MRR through partnerships with major website builders like Wix and Weebly, serving over 10,000 paying customers with an average spend of $30-60/month net. With 20 employees in Tampa and $7M raised, they're closing a $5M Series B round at a $36M valuation, achieving 100% YoY growth with 3% monthly churn among paying customers.

Simplify is a programmatic advertising platform founded in 2010 that brings sophisticated ad tech to local advertisers and multi-location brands. Growing at 40% YoY with 400 billing customers and 30,000 advertisers, the company achieved profitability three years before being majority acquired by private equity firm GTCR in 2017, with founders reinvesting half their proceeds. Processing hundreds of millions in ad spend annually with a 130% net revenue retention rate, Simplify generates revenue through platform fees (9-16 cents per dollar spent) and managed services fees (10% of spend).

Distillery is an applied data science company in the ad-tech space, launched in 2008 as a pure-play demand-side platform (DSP). After 10 years, the company pivoted in late 2017 to decouple its core product—high-performance behavioral audience data—from its own activation platform, allowing brands to use Distillery audiences across third-party platforms like The Trade Desk and AppNexus. The company takes a 20% revenue share on media spend, generating approximately $5 million in annual revenue from its data product line on $25 million in processed spend, while its legacy DSP business generates $27 million in net margin on roughly $55 million in platform spend.

PubVantage is a SaaS ad tech platform founded in 2015 by Declan Carney and Greg Freeman that solves the inefficiency of monetizing remnant ad inventory using universal passback tags. The company has grown to $120K MRR with 30 paid customers across three remote locations (Hope, Canada, and Vietnam), maintaining a 6-month payback period on customer acquisition with a 10% annual revenue churn. They're now splitting the business to launch a new unified reporting platform called All One, which already has 5 beta customers paying ~$2K/month.

Britek is a B2B wealth tech SaaS platform founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Yuri Furber (who previously sold a financial software company for $25M) that serves financial institutions in Latin America. The company went to market in 2014 after two years of development with $1M of Furber's own capital, and has grown to $450K MRR across 150 customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Chile with 100% year-over-year growth. The company raised $4M in 2015 and operates with exceptional unit economics: 99% retention, 10% expansion revenue, 109% net revenue retention, and 7-month payback periods.

Servoy is a low-code platform-as-a-service founded in 2001 by Jan Elman that enables rapid development of business applications for corporate users and independent software vendors. After 17 years of bootstrapped growth with only $1M in external funding raised in 2008, the company has scaled to over 1,000 customers, $30M ARR, 100 employees, 30% YoY growth, 3% revenue churn, and net revenue retention above 100%. The company maintains healthy unit economics with a 12-14 month customer acquisition payback period and a $1 CAC to $1 ACV ratio.

Tal Vista is a SaaS platform focused on diversity and inclusion in recruiting, launched in April 2019 by serial entrepreneur Scott Sessions. Operating bootstrapped and at break-even, the company had 5-10 customers and was approaching $1M ARR just months after launch by focusing on high-touch, high-ACV enterprise sales (ranging from $50k-$500k annually per customer).

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.

Good United, founded by Nick Black in 2015, helps large nonprofits manage peer-to-peer Facebook fundraisers through a usage-based SaaS model. After two failed product pivots, the company found product-market fit in July and now serves 20 nonprofit customers generating approximately $100,000 MRR ($1.2M ARR). The company is cash-positive with a team of 5 full-time employees and 15 contractors based in Charleston, South Carolina, and has raised $1M in capital.

Brex is a corporate credit card platform for startups founded by Enrique Dubugres and his co-founder after they sold Pagarme (the Stripe of Brazil) in September 2016. Launched through Y Combinator Winter 2017, Brex targets tech companies that can't access corporate credit without personal guarantees, offering higher limits, instant approval, and better product experience. The company generates revenue through interchange fees (0.5-3.5% per transaction) and has achieved 0% default rate while growing GMV 50-70% month-over-month on approximately $200M in raised capital.

Segment helps mid-market banks (under $100B in AUM) understand and categorize transaction data using machine learning and AI-powered rules engines. Founded by Rob Heiser, the company has grown from 12 customers in October 2018 to over 100 banks serving 10+ million customers combined, charging 6-20 cents per customer per month. The company raised $30 million, grew approximately 100% YoY in 2019, and projected 120-200% growth in 2020 despite COVID-19 disruptions.

Phil Strozula bootstrapped Select Software Reviews, a review platform for business software that competes with G2 and Captera by offering genuinely unbiased, in-depth content rather than inflated vendor-driven reviews. Launched in 2019 and monetized in August via cost-per-click advertising, the company grew to ~$12,000 MRR with 24 paying customers by relying on high-quality SEO content that ranks for critical HR software keywords. Phil dominates search results through superior content quality and time-on-page metrics, despite having significantly lower domain authority than competitors.