The Rise of the Cloud: The 2020 Forbes Cloud 100
This morning, for the fifth year in a row, in partnership with Forbes and Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures is excited to reveal the 2020 Cloud 100, the definitive list of the world’s top 100 private cloud companies and the 20 rising stars poised to join their ranks.
This morning, for the fifth year in a row, in partnership with Forbes and Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures is excited to reveal the 2020 Cloud 100, the definitive list of the world’s top 100 private cloud companies and the 20 rising stars poised to join their ranks. We’re proud to be part of the global cloud community and appreciate the opportunity to honor and recognize these companies and their achievements.
It’s an understatement to say that the cloud industry has seen tremendous growth. Today, 25 publicly-traded SaaS companies carry market capitalizations of more than $10 billion — up from three just five years ago. Since the last Cloud 100, eight companies have graduated from the list, Salesforce Ventures-backed companies nCino, which went public in July at a $2.8 billion valuation, Plaid (acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion), and Vlocity (acquired by Salesforce for $1.3 billion).
In record time, we’ve already seen two companies graduate from the list. This morning, JFrog ($FROG), #14 on this year’s Cloud 100 list, listed on Nasdaq. This year’s Cloud 100 #1 honoree, Snowflake ($SNOW) also listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange this morning in a blockbuster IPO. When we first invested in Snowflake last February, we shared why we are so excited about how they are ushering in a new data-centric era of cloud technology. Asana and Sumo Logic also recently filed to go public.
Even as many cloud technology companies have been seeing success, society has been facing several global crises all at once — a health crisis, an economic crisis, a crisis of racial injustice and a climate crisis. The cloud industry is offering solutions to new problems, as well as old ones that have been exacerbated. In a recent survey of Salesforce Ventures portfolio companies and Cloud 100 CEOs, 86% said they believe the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation, and more than 50% of them said they are seeing tailwinds in their own businesses.
We see the bar raised each year to be part of the Cloud 100 list. Over the past five years, the average valuation of a Cloud 100 company has more than doubled, from $1 billion in 2016 to $2.7 billion in 2020. Of the 100 companies on the list this year, 87 are valued at more than $1 billion — more than double the number of unicorns on our inaugural list in 2016.
Cloud 100 companies are leading the way in digital transformation, helping enterprises re-imagine everything about their businesses.
As data becomes an ever-more critical component of digital transformation and automation, companies that help enterprises solve data-related problems will continue to grow. We recommend keeping on eye on Automation Anywhere (#20), which uses natural language processing, image recognition and other advanced technologies to automate tasks from billing to managing the flow of customer data; BigID (#93), which automates data compliance and transforms how enterprises find, track, secure and govern their customer and employee data; and Zapier (#24), which connects disparate apps, making it possible to automate workflows between them.
With so much data being shared across data warehouses, internal organizations and partners, security and compliance issues are front and center. We believe Tanium (#12), a unified endpoint management security platform; Snyk (#86), a developer solution that quickly finds and fixes security issues; and Auth0 (#19), a solution for developers that authenticates and authorizes their applications and APIs, stand to benefit from increased demand.
Companies that offer solutions for virtual collaboration and communication for employees, as well as sales, customer service, and retention, were well-represented on the Cloud 100 list this year, including Salesforce Ventures-backed companies Gainsight (#88), Gong (#71), Highspot (#98), Outreach (#81) and Talkdesk (#53).
Retail, sales, and banking processes were already moving online, but shelter-in-place and a flight from cash to convenience quickened the evolution. Payment processing platform Stripe (#2); digital lending platform Blend (#64) and international payment network Airwallex (#61) are making it easier for enterprises to make the transition to cloud-based transactions and services.
We hope you’ll join us in congratulating all the companies who earned a spot on the Cloud 100 this year. The opportunity to help organizations modernize their businesses continues to grow as enterprises around the world have come to realize that digital transformation is no longer a competitive advantage; it’s an urgent imperative.
For more on The 2020 Cloud 100, including recaps of our virtual summit with some of the world’s top cloud CEOs, visit bit.ly/2020cloud100.
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