Zuora

Zuora, Inc.
Company typePublic
IndustryEnterprise software
Founded2007; 17 years ago (2007)
Founders
HeadquartersRedwood City, California, U.S.
Key people
Tien Tzuo (CEO)
Todd McElhatton (CFO)
RevenueIncrease US$396 million (2023)
Decrease US$−187 million (2023)
Decrease US$−198 million (2023)
Total assetsIncrease US$669 million (2023)
Total equityDecrease US$97.2 million (2023)
Number of employees
1,549 (2023)
Websitezuora.com
Footnotes / references
Financials as of January 31, 2023[1]

Zuora, Inc. is an American enterprise software company headquartered in Redwood City, California that creates and provides software for businesses to launch and manage their subscription-based services. Zuora's applications are designed to automate recurring billing, collections, quoting, revenue recognition, and subscription metrics.[2][3][4] Tien Tzuo, a co-founder of the company, has served as its CEO since 2007.[3][5]

History

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Launch and IPO

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In 2007, K.V. Rao and Cheng Zou (engineers at WebEx) and Tien Tzuo (an early executive at Salesforce) founded Zuora.[6][7] The name of the company derives from a combination of their three surnames. The concept behind the company was a cloud-based billings platform to alleviate the need for online businesses to develop their own billing systems.[7]

On 16 March 2018, the company filed for an initial public offering.[6][8] On 12 April 2018, Zuora listed in NYSE under the ticker symbol ZUO.[9][10] The company generated $154 million in the offering,[3] and entered the market as a public company at a $1.4 billion valuation.[11] By the end of April 2018, the company was valued at over $2 billion.[12]

In 2016, Zuora launched the Subscription Economy Index, which tracks revenue growth of subscription businesses, comparing the growth to sales benchmarks. The index is based on data from hundreds of businesses on Zuora's platform. The index is updated twice a year.[13][14][15]

Zuora hosts a conference series called Subscribed, covering topics related to the subscription economy and taking place in various cities each year.[16][17][4] The Subscribed Institute, a think tank for subscription-based companies, was founded by Amy Konary[18] and launched in 2018.[19]

In 2019, Zuora hired former LogMeIn executive Chris Battles as its chief product officer,[20] and former Adobe executive Robbie Traube as chief revenue officer.[21] In June 2020, Zuora hired Todd McElhatton, formerly of SAP, as its new chief financial officer.[22]

Zuora won the 2017 CODiE Award for Best Subscription Management Solution,[23][24] and the 2020 CODiE Award for Best Subscription Billing Solution.[25] Zuora received a 2020 Bronze Stevie Award for Customer Service.[26]

Acquisitions and partnerships

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On 20 May 2015, Zuora acquired Frontleaf and launched Z-Insights, combining information from its subscriber invoicing and billing platform with customer usage information.[27] In 2017, Zuora purchased Leeyo Software, a revenue recognition platform.[28][29]

Zuora partners with companies including Deloitte, Accenture, and PwC.[30] In 2020, Zuora announced an expanded integration with GoCardless, to help companies in North America, Europe, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand to process recurring payments faster and reduce payment-related costs.[31]

In August 2022, Zuora reached an agreement to acquire Zephr, a subscription experience platform, for $44 million in cash.[32] [33]

Funding

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On 17 December 2007, Zuora announced it had raised $6 million in Series A funding.[34] Zuora announced $15 million in Series B funding on 15 September 2008;[35] $20 million in Series C funding in October 2010;[7] $36 million in Series D funding on 4 November 2011;[36] $50 million in Series E funding on 5 September 2013;[37] and $115 million in Series F funding on 11 March 2015,[38] bringing its total funding to $250 million.[39] Investors include Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Index Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Vulcan Capital, and Next World Capital.[39] Private investors include founder and CEO of Salesforce Marc Benioff[40] and former PeopleSoft vice-chair and founder and co-CEO of Workday, Dave Duffield.[39]

Takeover

[edit]

In October 2024, American private equity firm Silver Lake together with Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC agreed to take Zuora private in an all-cash deal valued at $1.7 billion.[41]

Products

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Zuora sells a subscription management SaaS platform for businesses utilizing a subscription-service model.[42] The Zuora Central platform lets companies keep track of subscription payments, billing, collections, pricing, product catalogs, and accounting.[6][39][43] In addition to Zuora Central, Zuora's four primary SaaS applications are Zuora Billing, for recurring billing operations; Zuora Revenue, for revenue recognition; Zuora CPQ, sales quoting for subscription businesses; and Zuora Collect, for payment collections.[44] Zuora's app marketplace, Zuora Connect, allows partners to develop and list apps built on the Zuora Central platform.[45] In May 2020, a new version of the Zuora Central platform was released, with pre-built workflows, a new data query feature enabling faster access to live distributed data, an audit trail feature, and a new Zuora Central Sandbox tool to test and deploy new features.[46]

On 5 June 2018, Zuora announced Subscription Order Management, designed to help customers process renewals and more complex deals. It addresses the shift from subscription growth related to acquiring new customers to growth from existing customers.[47] In June 2019, at its Subscribed San Francisco conference, the company announced the Zuora Central Developer Platform, allowing developers to integrate Zuora's services with external services.[48] It was introduced in early 2020.[49][50] In 2020, the company launched Zuora Analytics, enabling customers to measure and analyze their subscription businesses.[51]

In 2021, Real-Time Revenue was released, allowing businesses to automate the process of reconciling and analyzing their revenue and more accurately close their books.[52]

References

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  1. ^ "Zuora Inc. fiscal 2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 3 April 2023.
  2. ^ Taulli, Tom. "Zuora Raises $36 Million to Invade Europe". Forbes. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  3. ^ a b c Farrell, Maureen (12 April 2018). "Tech IPO Market Shows Signs of Warming". The Wall Street Journal.
  4. ^ a b Hagan, Shelly (12 October 2018). "Zuora CEO Lauds Lack of Innovation From Rivals Oracle, SAP". Bloomberg.com.
  5. ^ Dilakian, Steven (17 May 2022). "Co-Founder Of Zuora Asks $10M For Alleyway "Oasis"". The Real Deal San Francisco. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  6. ^ a b c Peterson, Becky (16 March 2018). "The $738 million 'subscription economy' company Zuora files to go public". Business Insider. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  7. ^ a b c Rao, Leena. "Zuora's Journey To Managing The Subscription Economy". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  8. ^ Novet, Jordan (11 April 2018). "Zuora prices IPO at $14 per share — valuing the company at $1.44 billion". CNBC.
  9. ^ Salinas, Sara. "Zuora jumps nearly 43% on first day of trading". CNBC.
  10. ^ Nicas, Jack (15 April 2018). "Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists Prepare for an I.P.O. Wave". The New York Times.
  11. ^ Bort, Julie (12 April 2018). "Zuora soars in its IPO, and the founder's stake is worth nearly $200 million — 5 years after the company hit rocky times". Business Insider.
  12. ^ Lin, Serena (30 April 2018). "CEO of billion-dollar Zuora reveals a key management lesson he learned the hard way". CNBC.
  13. ^ Feldman, Amy (15 November 2016). "New Subscription Economy Index Shows Subscription Businesses Growing 9X Faster Than S&P 500 Ones". Forbes.
  14. ^ Preimesberger, Chris (17 November 2017). "Zuora Research Shows Major Growth in 'Subscription Economy'". eWeek.
  15. ^ Richter, Georg (9 February 2018). "Think Tank: Why Established Retailers Will Continue Adopting Subscription Models". Women's Wear Daily.
  16. ^ Ray, Tiernan (1 June 2018). "Zuora Soars: CEO Tzuo on the 'Subscription Economy'". Barron's.
  17. ^ Grant, Nico (5 June 2018). "Tech Company Gives Conference Guests Stock as a Party Favor". Bloomberg.com.
  18. ^ Kroll, Karen (4 September 2020). "Shaking Up Subscription Services". inboundlogistics.com. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  19. ^ "Life online: Subscribe to everything, own nothing". engadget.com. 17 August 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  20. ^ "On the move: Zuora". smdailyjournal.com. 26 August 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  21. ^ "Zuora Bets Big on Subscriptions, but the Stock Is Lagging". Barron's. 30 October 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  22. ^ "SAP Cloud CFO Departs for Zuora in Latest Executive Exit". Bloomberg. 27 May 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  23. ^ "2017 Winners". siia.net. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  24. ^ "Past CODiE Winners". history.siia.net. Retrieved 14 June 2023.
  25. ^ "Past CODiE Winners". history.siia.net. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  26. ^ "Customer Service Award Winners". stevieawards.com. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  27. ^ Clancy, Heather (26 May 2015). "Zuora analytics acquisition promises deeper insights for 'subscription economy'". Fortune.
  28. ^ Pozin, Ilya (28 January 2018). "20 of Marc Benioff's Best Startup Investments". Inc.
  29. ^ Miller, Ron. "Zuora to acquire Leeyo to help customers cope with upcoming accounting rules changes". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  30. ^ "Partners". Zuora.com. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  31. ^ "Zuora and GoCardless Expand Partnership to Revolutionize Global Subscription Payments". ffnews.com. 25 August 2020. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
  32. ^ "California-based Zuora acquires UK's subscription platform Zephr for $44M — TFN". Tech Funding News. 26 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  33. ^ ago, Mark Stenberg2 days. "Subscription Platform Zuora to Acquire Zephr in $44 Million Purchase". Retrieved 26 August 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  34. ^ Olsen, Stefanie (13 March 2008). "Benchmark, Benioff invest $6.5 million in Zuora". CNET. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  35. ^ Gage, Deborah (28 October 2008). "Zuora gets additional $15 million in VC cash". San Francisco Chronicle.
  36. ^ Sibley, Lisa (16 November 2011). "Zuora raises $36M from Silicon Valley backers". Business Journal. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  37. ^ Zax, David (10 January 2014). "The Subscription Economy's Secret Weapon". Fast Company.
  38. ^ Kepes, Ben. "Zuora Raises $115M - Subscriptions To The World (And The Public Markets)". Forbes. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  39. ^ a b c d Gage, Deborah (11 March 2015). "Zuora Raises $115 Million to Fuel Subscription Economy". The Wall Street Journal.
  40. ^ Hendrickson, Mark (20 May 2008). "Comment inShare Zuora Aims To Be Salesforce for Online Billing; Benioff Agrees". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  41. ^ "Billing software firm Zuora to go private in $1.7 bln deal with Silver Lake, GIC". Reuters. 17 October 2024.
  42. ^ Ray, Tiernan (15 March 2021). "Zuora (ZUO) Q4 Earnings Beat, Subscription Revenues Up Y/Y". Yahoo Finance.
  43. ^ Chartier, David (3 March 2009). "Zuora brings subscription payment lifeline for Facebook apps". Ars Technica. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  44. ^ "Company Overview of Zuora, Inc". Bloomberg. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  45. ^ Preimesberger, Chris (15 March 2017). "Zuora Adds 30 More Applications to Cloud Business Suite". eWeek.
  46. ^ "Zuora's latest platform release aimed at simplifying business workflows". siliconangle.com. 27 May 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  47. ^ Miller, Ron. "Zuora Orders aims to drive subscription renewals and expansion". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  48. ^ "Zuora Central lets developers build connected workflows across services". Techcrunch. 4 June 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  49. ^ "Zuora Launches Updated Central Platform for Subscription Businesses". www.destinationcrm.com. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  50. ^ "Zuora Subscribed London - confessions of a Subscription Economy virgin". Diginomica. 14 October 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  51. ^ "New Zuora Analytics and Zuora Billing Drive Agile Subscription Experiences". globalfintechseries.com. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  52. ^ "Zuora introduces Real-Time Revenue feature to make the financial closing process easier". www.kmworld.com. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
[edit]
  • Official website
  • Business data for Zuora, Inc.:
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