The Latest SaaS IPO: OneStream. It's a Good One.
"$500m ARR. $5B+ Market Cap. 34% Growth. That's About as Good As It Gets."
So we’ve finally had another great SaaS IPO — OneStream.  Just the third SaaS IPO since December 2021,  OneStream is SaaS for CFOs and financial operations, a large but somewhat under-discussed category. SAP and Oracle are very strong here.
Founded back in 2010 (SaaS takes time!) with first customers launched in 2012, the metrics today are very strong:
$480,000,000 in ARR
Growing 34% (strong)
98% GRR (!) and 118% NRR
11% Free Cash Flow Margins, 20% the past 2 quarters
That’s the full package.
5 Interesting Learnings:
#1. Went from $100m ARR to $450m ARR in Just 3 Years (!)
Many slow down as they approach $100m ARR and especially $200m ARR. Not OneStream. It built up speed then, and wrnt from $100m ARR in 2020 to $200m in 2021 and $300m in 2022 and $450m in 2023! Goodness. Still, growth has now slowed to a top tier but more human rate of 34%
#2. Professional Services is 8% of Revenues
This seems pretty standard now in the enterprise. There’s no perfect answer here, but most enterprise leaders seem to try to keep lower-margin pro services under 10% of revenue — and have third parties do the rest.
#3. GRR of Stunning 98%
No one leaves. NRR is strong at 118%, but it’s the 98% GRR that makes the jaw drop. ServiceNow has similar GRR. Once you pick OneStream to manage your financial platform — you don’t leave.
#4. 72% of Growth From New Customers, 28% From Existing
We can try to infer this from NRR numbers, but it’s super helpful to see a leader break this out.  To grow 34%, OneStream is also adding +21% new customers a year.
#5. 1,388 Customers, So Average Deal Size of $325,000
A true enterprise playbook here. Again, OneStream is adding +21% new customers a year. SaaS leaders at scale need to add +20% new customers a year in general to stay in growth mode.
And a few other interesting learnings:
#6.  31% of Revenue From Outside U.S.
Pretty impressive to me at least considering how different accounting and legal frameworks are in different countries and jurisdictions.
#7. Broke Into Positive Free Cash Flow In 2024
OneStream was almost break-even in 2023, and then as it geared up to IPO, switched to 11% or so free-cash flow margins this year and 20%+ for past 2 quarters. OneStream switched to a much more efficient mode the year before filing to IPO. Did it trade off some growth? Possibly.
Meritech has a good summary here of their path to cash-flow positive
#8. Perhaps Most Impressively — It Was Bootstrapped For 8 Years, Up To ~$100m ARR and a $1B Valuation!
At scale, they eventually raised buy-out capital from KKR. But until that stage, it was 100% bootstrapped — with no external capital at all. Boom!
Overall it doesn’t get much better than this.  And it closed +34% in its IPO!
