usage-based Startups

Flask Data automates detection and response in virtual clinical trials, charging $500 per patient. Founded by Danny Lieberman, a solid state physicist and former medical device security consultant, the company grew from $287,000 in 2019 revenue to $320,000 in 2020 and now does $40,000 monthly recurring revenue (December 2020). The bootstrapped startup is pursuing a $2 million contract with a 20,000-patient trial and aims to break $1 million ARR in 2021.

Accuant is a digital identity and fraud prevention SaaS platform serving both SMB and enterprise customers globally, processing hundreds of millions of identity verifications annually. The company generates 60-70% of revenue from SaaS and uses a hybrid go-to-market combining large OEM partnerships and direct sales. Currently targeting 40-50% year-over-year revenue growth with 180 employees and net revenue retention above 100%.

Rocked is an e-commerce platform that optimizes the transaction moment—the critical point at checkout where brands can upsell or cross-sell products. Founded in 2012 by Bruce Buchanan (formerly of Jetstar), the company powers 3,000 enterprise clients across 16 countries with three revenue streams: advertising, product rev-share (distributed commerce), and SaaS. In 2021, Rocked achieved $170M in revenue with $90M gross profit, growing 35-40% year-over-year even through COVID's impact on travel and ticketing verticals.

AI Partnerships is a pre-revenue SaaS company founded by serial entrepreneur Tom Kaur that partners with 15 mid-sized software companies (adding 1-2 per week) to white-label AI capabilities and services. The company raised $2.5M pre-seed at a $6M valuation and plans to go public to facilitate acquiring these affiliate partners, targeting 50 affiliates and 5,000+ customers by year-end. The model mirrors US Web's late-1990s playbook: establish affiliates in year one, acquire them in year two, and scale to $100M+ in revenues.

DID is a SaaS platform founded in 2017 by Gil Perry and co-founders Eliran Kuta and Sela Brondheim that started in privacy/face recognition protection before pivoting to an AI face platform for creating synthetic videos for media and entertainment. The company has raised $24 million, serves dozens of enterprise customers with ACVs exceeding $100,000, and recently launched with MyHeritage which generated 80 million API calls in two months. With a team of 24 (14 engineers) and strong inbound demand from PR success, DID is positioned to scale further and raise another round of funding.

RUPAfi is an embedded lending platform providing BNPL credit to small businesses in India's B2B marketplaces. Launched in July 2020, the company grew from $5,000 MRR in June to $60,000 MRR by September (10x growth in 3 months) by partnering with major platforms like Flipkart and Walmart's B2B divisions. The company operates as a managed marketplace, handling customer acquisition, underwriting, and collections while balance sheet partners provide the capital, with RUPAfi keeping 40% of transaction fees.

Veeam is a regulated global payment platform founded in 2014 by Marwan Forzley that helps 300,000+ SMBs across 110 countries send, receive, and manage payments in 70+ currencies. The company took three years to reach $1M in revenue (2017) due to regulatory licensing requirements, but has since doubled customer accounts annually. Revenue is generated through three primary streams: foreign exchange (0.25-2%), credit card fees (2.9%), and real-time debit card deposits (1%), plus a newer embedded capital/buy-now-pay-later program. With 65% of new customer acquisition coming from word-of-mouth referrals within the payment transaction flow itself, Veeam demonstrates exceptional product-market fit in the SMB payments space.

Yellow Dog, founded in 2015 by Simon Ponsford, is a cloud acceleration platform that licenses compute power based on core hours used. Starting with animation and rendering studios needing capacity for 4K workflows, the company has expanded into financial services and life sciences. Growing from $30,000 MRR a year ago to $150,000 MRR today, Yellow Dog has raised approximately $8 million across multiple rounds including crowdfunding, angel, and VC funding.

Mindee is an API platform that helps software companies build document processing automation features. Founded in 2018 and launched commercially in 2019, the company serves over 70 customers primarily in financial services, charging usage-based pricing at $0.10 per page. With 15% month-over-month organic growth, 250% net dollar retention, and a $14M Series A raised in 2023, Mindee is scaling rapidly with a 27-person team (20 engineers).

Pliance.io is a SaaS platform helping regulated financial institutions comply with anti-money laundering legislation through KYC and transaction monitoring. Founded by Siam Tawdry and two co-founders in late 2018, the company bootstrapped for three years before raising a $1.5M seed round in April 2021. With 15 active customers out of 30 signed customers and current MRR of $15,000, Pliance operates on a volume-based pricing model charging approximately 50 cents per active customer screened, with their largest customer processing 250K checks monthly.

Bindle is a digital credential wallet that converts health records into non-fungible tokens, allowing venues and events to verify vaccination status and test results without accessing sensitive medical data. Founded in June 2020 with first release in August 2020, the company is currently processing around 4,000 scans monthly across 200 active paying customers and 100,000 installed wallets across 30 US states and Canadian provinces. Operating at a usage-based model charging 10 cents per scan, Bindle generates approximately $400-500 monthly in revenue while competing against larger players like Clear and IBM.

Kobalt.co is a B2B marketplace connecting creators with vetted suppliers for physical product manufacturing. Founded by Elle Black in late 2019, the company has facilitated 177 product launches in the past year with 36% of creators launching second products. The company operates on an 8% transaction fee model from suppliers and is venture-backed with $2.8M raised to date.

Fanbase is a creator monetization platform launched in 2019 that allows content creators to earn revenue through subscriptions and virtual currency tips. With over 200,000 total downloads and 49,000 monthly active users, the platform has generated over $300,000 in creator earnings while Fanbase takes a 20% commission. Isaac raised $3.5M at a $20M valuation via Start Engine to scale the platform targeting Gen Z creators.

Ocale.ai is a control tower platform for operations teams managing mobile assets (delivery, ride-sharing, logistics). Founded in 2019 by Aditi Sinha and Rishabh, the company launched its product in August 2020 and has grown from ~$1,000 MRR to $40,000 MRR in one year. They've raised a $1.3M seed round and are planning to raise Series A as they approach $1M ARR with a team of 20 (11 engineers).

SafeWo Labs built a passwordless authentication plugin SDK that enables banks, e-commerce platforms, and cryptocurrency exchanges to authenticate users without passwords or one-time codes. Starting from zero in February 2021 with first code written in July 2020, they grew to $130,000 MRR in 12 months through product-led growth and community engagement, primarily via their 12,000-developer Discord and Slack communities. The company raised $1M total across pre-seed and seed rounds and is closing a $9M Series A at a $65M valuation.

Opslips is a cloud management SaaS platform launched in December 2020 that helps organizations manage their cloud infrastructure and optimize costs. Founded by Ayush (27), the company landed its first customer (InShorts) in February 2020 through networking and has grown to 10 customers with an ARR of ~$420k ($35k MRR), roughly doubling year-over-year. They recently raised $500k in a pre-seed round from family, friends, and Indian investors while maintaining bootstrapped economics.

WhatConverts is a bootstrapped SaaS platform for lead tracking, management, and attribution that grew from $100k in year one to $3.6M ARR by maintaining product focus and competing against well-funded competitors through superior customer support and content marketing. Founded in March 2015 by Michael Cooney and Jeremy (developer), the company grew 60% year-over-year using a land-and-expand strategy targeting marketing agencies, achieving a 70% free trial-to-customer conversion rate.

Boltzbit AI, founded by Dr. Yuchuan Zhang, is a deep tech SaaS platform that democratizes AI by allowing businesses to build machine learning solutions from their data without ML expertise. The company landed its first customer (a $150k annual contract) through personal connections in a niche vertical focused on intelligent document search that combines text and image analysis. Since April 2020, they've raised $2.4M across two rounds and now have a 9-person team exploring adjacent verticals in fintech and digital marketing.

Subscribe is a vehicle subscription marketplace launched in November 2020 that allows car owners to list vehicles for weekly or monthly rentals while Subscribe manages pricing, maintenance, and customer experience. Currently operating in Toronto with 30 cars across 10 owners and 20 renters in April, generating approximately $2,000 in monthly revenue. The platform takes a 20-30% commission on transactions and offers insurance coverage, with plans to diversify revenue through additional asset utilization opportunities.

Justify is a payment infrastructure platform for vertical SaaS companies, founded in January 2021 by Joe Scales and co-founder from Sports Engine. The company helps vertical SaaS platforms monetize payments and embedded fintech products (lending, card issuing, insurance) through a combination of payment processing infrastructure, LMS training (Engage), and analytics dashboards (Insights). With 24-48 platforms live on the platform managing approximately $5 billion in GMV, Justify has raised $10.6M in seed funding and operates with a team of 27, positioning itself as "payment and fintech sherpas" for vertical SaaS companies.