On Mar. 10, Bessemer Venture Partners published its annual report — the State of the Cloud 2021.
(Non-technical definition) Cloud-based software are online tools that can be accessed anywhere with internet availability via a web browser. Think Slack, Dropbox, Zoom, etc.
2020 was a big year for cloud companies:
- Largest IPO in history — Snowflake
- Twice as many cloud IPOs in 2020 than 2019
- 2nd largest acquisition in the history of Slack () for $27.7b by Salesforce
The FAANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) famously defined the internet. Over 20 years, an investment in these companies would’ve increased by over 235x.
But there’s a new set of acronyms in town — MT SAAS (Microsoft, Twilio, Salesforce, Amazon, Adobe and Shopify) — as coined by Bessemer, who believe cloud leaders will become the drivers of growth.
- Over the last 4 years, MT SAAS stocks had a return of 800% compared to 330% for FAANG stocks.
Bessemer’s 2021 predictions:
- Unbundling of the office — the work from anywhere movement is here to stay and tools that serve the remote workforce will continue to benefit.
- SMB (small-medium-sized businesses) SAAS makes a comeback — as more small businesses see the importance of cloud software.
