Supermetrics
Mikkel Groot started Supermetrics in 2010 with a simple problem: marketers were manually pulling Google Analytics data into Excel, a tedious and error-prone task. As a self-taught developer with a background in social sciences, he built an Excel add-on that automated this workflow. It was a straightforward solution to his own pain point, and he ran it solo for five years—a lean, profitable microenterprise generating around $300K in revenue by 2015.
The early version was just the Excel add-on, but growth was slow. The turning point came in 2014 when Google reached out asking Supermetrics to be one of the first featured add-ons in their new Google Sheets add-on gallery. Groot initially declined, skeptical that people would pay for Sheets functionality. Google came back and persuaded him. He built the Sheets integration and launched in the gallery alongside only a couple dozen competitors—most of them not competitive. "I was pretty much having that market for myself only for a very long time," he recalls.
The Google Sheets placement was massive. Groot calls it "the turning point for the company, where I went from this one man slowly growing Excel business into a growth rocket." Revenue hit $600K in 2015, and by 2016 it reached $1.6M. But the second inflection was even bigger: in 2017, Google invited Supermetrics to be the first company to build connectors for their new Data Studio gallery, which let marketers pull Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, and other non-Google data sources into Data Studio. Again, first-mover advantage in a nascent marketplace. Revenue jumped to $2.2M officially (closer to $3M after accounting adjustments).
The secret wasn't luck—it was intentional strategy layered on top of platform distribution. Starting in 2016, when Groot hired his first marketing person, Supermetrics invested heavily in content marketing. By 2020, the marketing team had grown to 15 people (out of 130 total). The company also built a successful affiliate program, paying 20% commission to agencies (in perpetuity or for a significant period). These agencies, many of which resell Supermetrics, became a major customer acquisition engine.
Three years before the 2020 funding round, Groot built out a 40-person enterprise sales team to pursue larger deals—moving beyond pure self-serve to a hybrid motion. By 2020, the company had ~15,000 customers, but when accounting for marketing agencies and their end clients, Supermetrics reached nearly a million companies using the platform.
By September 2020, Supermetrics was running at a $27M ARR ($2.25M MRR) pace, with projected full-year revenue of ~$24M. Groot raised a $40M Series B led by Highland Europe—a secondary round where he and early employees also cashed out part of their stakes. The valuation range was $200-500M, though he believes COVID-19 (which hit mid-fundraising) cost him ~$50M+ in valuation compared to pre-pandemic expectations. Despite the raise, Supermetrics remained profitable. The company is now diversifying beyond connectors into enterprise data warehouse solutions (Snowflake, BigQuery integrations) and exploring strategic acquisitions of competitors and complementary companies.
Similar Companies
247.ai
$25.0M/mo247.ai, founded by PV Cannon in 2000, is an AI-powered customer service automation platform serving over 150 enterprise customers with $300M+ in ARR. The company raised only $20M from Sequoia (2003) and bootstrap, achieving 10% net profit margins while maintaining a 12-month CAC payback period and 100% net revenue retention. Despite a security breach setback around 2018, 247.ai has recovered and recently achieved 20% new revenue booking growth in their best quarter.
Madwire
$10.0M/moMadwire is a comprehensive SaaS platform for small businesses (1-100 employees) that combines CRM, payments, invoicing, billing, e-commerce, and multi-channel marketing tools in a single platform. Founded in 2009, the company has grown to $120M ARR serving 20,000 customers with an average revenue per user of $500/month, while maintaining strong unit economics ($3,000-$4,000 CAC with 3-month payback) and recently turning profitable with a focus on reaching 15-20% EBITDA margins. The company is exploring an IPO within 12-18 months without having raised substantial capital beyond an initial $7.5M.
Brandwatch
$5.0M/moBrandwatch is an enterprise SaaS social intelligence platform founded in August 2007 by Giles Palmer that crawls 80 million websites and aggregates social media feeds to provide brands with real-time insights about conversations mentioning them and competitors. Operating profitably at scale with 1,500 enterprise customers paying an average ACV of $30,000, the company generated over $60M ARR in 2017 and grew approximately 30% year-over-year while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital deployment.
Braze
$5.0M/moBraze (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.
Active Campaign
$4.2M/moActive Campaign started in 2003 as an on-premise email marketing solution built by Jason Vanderboom to fund his fine arts degree. After 10 years and 8 employees generating a couple million in revenue, he transitioned to a SaaS model starting at $9/month. The company now has over 60,000 customers generating over $50 million annually and employs 330 people, growing primarily through organic adoption, partnerships, and focus on the SMB market despite pressure to move upmarket.