The Day in SaaS 07.13.21: $575M for Chorus; $100M for Police Tech; and DropBox Gets a Bear Hug
ZoomInfo drops $575M on Chorus.ai as AI shakes up the sales market. The conversation intelligence market is quiet competitive. Gong and Chorus compete head-on, while Salesloft and Outreach incorporate much of the functionality. Chorus decides to join ZoomInfo for $575m to win.
Dropbox CEO says engagement with Elliott has been "friendly" (NASDAQ:DBX) Elliot Management took on Box, asking for the CEO to step down. They lost. Now, they take on DropBox.
Mark43 Raises $101M to Expand Police Tech Products. Vertical SaaS remains hot. In part because it’s less competitive at scale. Mark43 has some 120 U.S. police department clients, up from about 60 two years ago, and provides technology to such major departments as Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
Even Amazon wants in on the creator economy. The number of marketing job listings related to creators has surged 4,645 times since 2018, peaking at 92,900positions earlier this year—and Amazon was the single largest job poster.
San Francisco hotel market in state of depression: report. Business travel is coming back. But not to San Francisco. Offices remain empty. Hotels have it even worse. “Back in 2019, the average room at the Handlery Union Square, Hotel Hillary was $255 a night. Now it’s $135 a night and the occupancy rate has also dropped a dramatic 60%.”
SolarWinds says hackers used a zero-day flaw for 'targeted attacks' in a new breach - CyberScoop. SolarWinds is hacked. Again.
Microsoft under fire for pushing users onto the SaaS bandwagon. Is it OK to push customers that have paid for a perpetual license to … pay again for a SaaS subscription? A $300m+ lawsuit says No.
SoftBank rewrote the VC rules. Now it’s Tiger’s turn. 1.5 SaaS VC deals — a day. For Tiger.
Rents in San Mateo County return close to pre-pandemic levels. San Francisco remains a wasteland (see above), but the Peninsula (site of 2021 SaaStr Annual) is booming. Residential rents are back to where they were, or close.
China’s crackdown puts at least 70 IPOs, billions in fees on ice. It’s not just Didi. China’s crackdown has put 70+ IPOs on hold.
