Aug
18
2021
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Would the math work if Databricks were valued at $38B?

Databricks, the open-source data lake and data management powerhouse has been on quite a financial run lately. Today Bloomberg reported the company could be raising a new round worth at least $1.5 billion at an otherworldly $38 billion valuation. That price tag is up $10 billion from its last fundraise in February when it snagged $1 billion at a $28 billion valuation.

Databricks declined to comment on the Bloomberg post and its possible new valuation.

The company has been growing like gangbusters, giving credence to the investor thesis that the more your startup makes, the more it is likely to make. Consider that Databricks closed 2020 with $425 million in annual recurring revenue, which in itself was up 75% from the previous year.

As revenue goes up so does valuation, and Databricks is a great example of that rule in action. In October 2019, the company raised $400 million at a seemingly modest $6.2 billion valuation (if a valuation like that can be called modest). By February 2021, that had ballooned to $28 billion, and today it could be up to $38 billion if that rumor turns out to be true.

One of the reasons that Databricks is doing so well is it operates on a consumption model. The more data you move through the Databricks product family, the more money it makes, and with data exploding, it’s doing quite well, thank you very much.

It’s worth noting that Databricks’s primary competitor, Snowflake went public last year and has a market cap of almost $83 billion. In that context, the new figure doesn’t feel quite so outrageous, But what does it mean in terms of revenue to warrant a valuation like that. Let’s find out.

Valuation math

Let’s rewind the clock and observe the company’s recent valuation marks and various revenue results at different points in time:

  • Q3 2019: $200 million run rate, $6.2 billion valuation
  • Q3 2020: $350 million run rate, no known valuation change
  • EoY 2020: $425 million run rate, $28 billion valuation (Q1 valuation)
  • Q3 2021: Unclear run rate, possible $38 billion valuation

The company’s 2019 venture round gave Databricks a 31x run rate multiple. By the first quarter of 2021, that had swelled to a roughly 66x multiple if we compare its final 2020 revenue pace to its then-fresh valuation. Certainly software multiples were higher at the start of 2021 than they were in late 2019, but Databricks’s $28 billion valuation was still more than impressive; investors were betting on the company like it was going to be a key breakout winner, and a technology company that would go public eventually in a big way.

To see the company possibly raise more funds would therefore not be surprising. Presumably the company has had a good few quarters since its last round, given its history of revenue accretion. And there’s only more money available today for growing software companies than before.

But what to make of the $38 billion figure? If Databricks merely held onto its early 2021 run rate multiple, the company would need to have reached a roughly $575 million run rate, give or take. That would work out to around 36% growth in the last two-and-a-bit quarters. That works out to less than $75 million in new run rate per quarter since the end of 2020.

Is that possible? Yeah. The company added $75 million in run rate between Q3 2020 and the end of the year. So you can back-of-the-envelope the company’s growth to make a $38 billion valuation somewhat reasonable at a flat multiple. (There’s some fuzz in all of our numbers, as we are discussing rough timelines from the company; we’ll be able to go back and do more precise math once we get the Databricks S-1 filing in due time.)

All this raises the question of whether Databricks should be able to command such a high multiple. There’s some precedent. Recently, public software company Monday.com has a run rate multiple north of 50x, for example. It earned that mark on the back of a strong first quarter as a public company.

Databricks securing a higher multiple while private is not crazy, though we wonder if the data-focused company is managing a similar growth rate. Monday.com grew 94% on a year-over-year basis in its most recent quarter.

All this is to say that you can make the math shake out for Databricks to raise at a $38 billion valuation, but built into that price is quite a lot of anticipated growth. Top quartile public software companies today trade for around 23x their forward revenues, and around 27x their present-day revenues, per Bessemer. To defend its possible new valuation when public, then, leaves quite a lot of work ahead of Databricks.

The company’s CEO, Ali Ghodsi, will join us at TC Sessions: SaaS on October 27th, and we should know by then if this rumor is, indeed true. Either way, you can be sure we are going to ask him about it.

 

Mar
22
2021
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Box shares rise on report company is exploring sale

Shares of Box, a well-known content-and-collaboration company that went public in 2015, rose today after Reuters reported that the company is exploring a sale. TechCrunch previously discussed rising investor pressure for Box to ignite its share-price after years in the public-market wilderness.

At the close today Box’s equity was worth $23.65 per share, up around 5% from its opening value, but lower than its intraday peak of $26.47, reached after the news broke. The company went public a little over five years ago at $14 per share, only to see its share price rise to around the same level it returned today during its first day’s trading.

Box, famous during its startup phase thanks in part to its ubiquitous CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie, has continued to grow while public, albeit at a declining pace. Dropbox, a long-term rival, has also seen its growth rate decline since going public. Both have stressed rising profitability over revenue expansion in recent quarters.

But the problem that Box has encountered while public, namely hyper-scale platform companies with competing offerings, could also prove a lifeline; Google and Microsoft could be a future home for Levie’s company, after years of the duo challenging Box for deals.

As recently as last week, Box announced a deal for tighter integration with Microsoft Office 365. Given the timing of the release, it was easy to speculate the news could be landing ahead of a potential deal. The Reuters article adds fuel to the possibility.

While we can’t know for sure if the Reuters article is accurate, the possible sale of Box makes sense.

The article indicated that one of the possible acquisition options for Box could be taking it private again via private equity. Perhaps a firm like Vista or Thoma Bravo, two firms that tend to like mature SaaS companies with decent revenue and some issues, could swoop in to buy the struggling SaaS company. By taking companies off the market, reducing investor pressure and giving them room to maneuver, software companies can at times find new vigor.

Consider the case of Marketo, a company that Vista purchased in 2016 for $1.6 billion before turning it around and selling to Adobe in 2018 for $4.75 billion. The end result generated a strong profit for Vista, and a final landing for Marketo as part of a company with a broader platform of marketing tools.

If there are expenses at Box that could be trimmed, or a sales process that could be improved is not clear. But Box’s market value of $3.78 billion could put it within grasp of larger private-equity funds. Or well within the reaches of a host of larger enterprise software companies that might covet its list of business customers, technology, or both.

If the rumors are true, it could be a startling fall from grace for the company, moving from Silicon Valley startup-darling to IPO to sold entity in just six years. While it’s important to note these are just rumors, the writing could be on the wall for the company and it could just be a matter of when and not if.

Sep
13
2018
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Why rumors that Adobe could be in talks to buy Marketo make sense

Adobe could be shopping for another piece of the digital marketing puzzle, as reports surfaced today that the company might be in talks with Vista Equity Partners to buy Marketo, a company the private equity firm purchased in May 2016 for $1.8 billion in cash. Reuters was first to report the rumor.

While the report states the talks are early, and nothing is imminent, and none of the companies involved would comment (understandably), it is a deal that makes sense for Adobe. The company has been trying to build out its digital marketing business for some time, including buying Magento in May for $1.8 billion to help beef up the ecommerce piece.

Assuming that Vista wants to flip Marketo for a profit, a good bet, it would likely need to come in at $2 billion at a minimum and probably more. There are only a few companies out there that could afford the price tag, who would be interested in a property like Marketo: Adobe, Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP and Oracle.

If Adobe really wanted to go for the digital marketing jugular, it could fork over the cash and buy Marketo. Brent Leary, who covers this industry as the principle at CRM Essentials, says this would be a way for Adobe to grab a chunk of enterprise marketing automation business at a time when the market is getting highly competitive.

“Marketo would give Adobe a leader in the marketing automation space at the enterprise customer level, particularly in the B2B space.” Leary explained.

While nothing is clear yet, Adobe has the resources if it wants to do it. The company currently has $6.3 billion in cash on hand, according to data on Yahoo finance, and has seen its stock price rise significantly in the last year from $156.24 to $269.58 (as of publication today).

 

Adobe Creative Cloud has always been the primary money maker for Adobe over the years, generating $1.3 billion in the last report (pdf) in June out of $2.2 billion in total revenue. Digital Experience, which includes marketing products, generated $586 million, and although it’s trending up, it has so much more potential.

We have been seeing more M&A action in this space as companies try to fill in various parts of the sale-service-marketing triumvirate. Just last week, we saw Zendesk, the company that concentrates on cloud customer service, enter the sales automation and CRM part of the space with the purchase of Base. Earlier this month, Thoma Bravo bought Apttus, a company which covers the quote-to-cash part of the sales cycle.

Adobe finds itself competing with other giant organizations with the previously mentioned companies all lining up for a piece of the digital marketing business. Getting Marketo certainly has the potential to help push that Digital Experience revenue line up further as the fight for marketshare gets ever more intense. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but Marketo is certainly a company that would match up well with Adobe if it wanted to make such a move.

It’s worth mentioning that Adobe will be reporting its latest earnings this afternoon.

Sep
24
2016
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Why Salesforce might be interested in Twitter

A person is seen using the Twitter app on a tablet. Rumors were flying all day yesterday that Twitter is up for sale, and Salesforce.com could be a chief suitor. At this point, with so many possible bidders being reported, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen (if anything). But the big question for many is why Salesforce would even be interested in the consumer-facing social network. While nobody could say with certainty that… Read More

Oct
08
2015
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EMC-Dell Rumors Could Be About Storage Giant Exiting On Its Own Terms

EMC logo over psychedelic dance floor Rumors that Dell is going to buy Massachusetts-based storage giant EMC, first reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, have been flying fast and furiously. The deal could be valued as high as $27/share, or just shy of $52 billion, according to one report, sending EMC’s stock soaring today. If the rumors are true, it could be one of the biggest tech M&A deals in history… Read More

May
05
2015
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Salesforce Shares Pop As Rumors Of Microsoft Buying The CRM Shop Circulate

There's a rumor grafitti Shares of Salesforce popped today following a report that Microsoft is a potential candidate to purchase the public company best known for its work in customer relationship management. Salesforce, worth around $47 billion as of the time of writing, saw its shares pop several points in the wake of the news, before seeing its price retreat to nearly pre-news levels. Read More

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