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So far, 2020 has been mostly a garbage year, but it has also been consistently interesting in terms of the amount of change that it has brought.
Venture capital?
Changed
. Public markets? Very changed
. How to go public? How about a SPAC
? E-commerce? Going through a once-in-a-generation step-change
. E-commerce venture investment? Down
. Fintech investing? More nine-figure rounds than ever
. Fintech losses? New records
.
The list goes on. But amidst the signals and noise, there has been a notable theme struck by some public companies in their earnings reports, and private companies’ investors in interviews: the digital transformation is accelerating .
This concept is something that TechCrunch
has covered
at length this year
, including this column, where we’ve chatted with folks from Twilio and Qualtrics to collect their in-market observations
.
But if companies of all stripes are racing to modernize operations with more software and more cloud, why aren’t we seeing more revenue acceleration amongst public SaaS companies?
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That’s a question
Redpoint’s Jamin Ball
asked the other day on Twitter, posting a chart showing that most SaaS and cloud companies posted revenue deceleration in Q2 2020 compared to Q1 2020. Less revenue growth during a longer period of supposedly COVID-led digital acceleration? Odd, given what you’ll hear talking to any booster of public or private cloud companies.
Indeed, the narrative in mid-Q2 was that things were looking better than expected amongst startups, at least, and by late Q2 that many were actually catching a COVID tailwind. But if their public brethren are any indication, things could be slower among private companies than anticipated.
