This morning, we had some great news here at Marketo. We announced a large round of primary capital funding – $50 million – led by new investors Battery Ventures. We’re delighted to welcome Battery, and General Partner Neeraj Agrawal, to the Marketo journey.
The media have been enthusiastic about our news, but today’s announcement is just the tip of the iceberg of a truly breakout year for Marketo. The broader business economy is hungry for ways to grow, especially given the current economic climate (I recently wrote on Forbes about the ways turmoil breeds opportunity). Indeed, there’s a new class of cloud technology that is transforming the enterprise, and business overall. Marketo is right in the thick of that transformative shift.
Here at Marketo, we are changing – and accelerating – the way businesses grow and succeed. The impact spans companies of all sizes and types. The enterprise sector has become the fastest-growing for Marketo, delivering value to major firms like McKesson Pharmaceutical, Dell Retail, Intel Corporation, Kelly Services, USG and many more. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our new Spark by Marketo™ product is fueling rapid growth for small businesses in the US and abroad.
If you break down the impact we’re having on our customers, Marketo helps improve revenue dramatically across all sectors – customers often cite figures like a 40 percent increase in revenues, 12 percent uptick in contract values and more. When you aggregate those increases, our vision is to grow our customers’ total revenue by more than $2.5 trillion over the next three to five years (source: RPM Quotient Study).
Our investors are excited about this market opportunity, as well as our own best-in-class growth. We’ve reached this point by practicing what we preach: Just last month, we were honored to be named the fastest-growing company in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. We grew more than 1400 percent from 2008 to 2010, and we did it with our own technology and Revenue Performance Management thought leadership.
Today’s news is big for us. We view our total capital of $70 million to be a war chest to dominate the market, go above and beyond for customers, and transform the way that any business grows. I’ve long thought the rule for modern, agile start-ups is that you should begin frugally, and, when your business is taking share from competitors, you should double down. Our investors concur – they don’t expect us to just sit back and admire our new capital. They expect us to transform their investment into continued distinct leadership by broadening the technology we bring to the market, expanding internationally, and looking beyond our four walls to complement our own innovation engine.
As AllThingsD noted, Marketo is a “rocket fuel for sales.” That fuel has launched us to new heights, and we think it will power the growth of businesses worldwide for years to come.
Phil Fernandez
Posted by Phil Fernandez in Revenue Performance