Expensive SaaStr: What’s the shortest time it took for an organization to go from idea/launch to their IPO?
I believe Lotus Software program (of 1-2-3 fame) have to be shut.
It shipped Lotus 1-2-3 in January ’83 and bought $50m in software program in its first 12 months in the marketplace — that have to be $100m+ in at this time’s $$$. Versus, apparently, a plan for $1m in revenues the primary 12 months acc. to Wikipedia.
It IPO’d later that identical 12 months of launch.
“No software program” and the web are nice. However transport the stuff on floppies appeared to work simply positive as effectively. And it appeared to essentially decrease dilution (see founder stakes beneath).
Now, instances had been completely different. Lotus shortly change into a unicorn even by the requirements of the day. However an IPO again then was in any methods like a late stage financing at this time. It was the one environment friendly approach to elevate a bigger slug of capital.
Anyhow, even after in the long run, “dropping” this preliminary market to Microsoft … Microsoft / Invoice Gates nonetheless purchased the corporate for $3.5 billion in ’95. Not too shabby.
Fast forward to today, the “average” SaaS company that IPO’s … takes 13.6 years to get there.
Some clearly might have IPO’d a lot earlier. Cavna, Databricks, Stripe and extra are ready till billions in ARR to IPO. However a helpful metric to grasp nonetheless.
Extra on that knowledge right here:
