$5.6B cloud company Fivetran acquired its way to survival

# · ✸ 95 · 💬 108 · one year ago · www.forbes.com · zegl · 📷
Cofounders George Fraser and Taylor Brown pulled off a "Rabbit out of a hat" deal to make their data company viable. Instead, the CEO and cofounder of Fivetran was worrying about his job and the company he had spent nine long years building with his childhood friend Taylor Brown, whose family also summered in the same patch of northern pines. "Most folks, after several years in the wrong direction, will completely shut down the company and go elsewhere," says Y Combinator president Geoff Ralston, who endearingly counts Fivetran as one of the ultimate "Cockroaches" out of more than 3,800 startups that have gone through Y Combinator. Fiscal Q3 revenues for Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office 365 Commercial and parts of LinkedIn, jumped 32% to $23 billion, nearly half of total company revenue. The transaction upped Fivetran's value to $5.6 billion, but HVR's roughly $30 million of revenue from large companies with big tech budgets was the real prize, giving Fivetran more solid footing than many of its peers. The company, which lands in 27th place on this year's Cloud 100 ranking, forecasts $189 million in revenue this fiscal year, more than double last year's figure. While Fivetran's war chest-it still has about $200 million in cash on hand-may seem large enough for it to survive a venture capital winter, Fraser says he plans to raise another funding round within the next two years regardless of market conditions; after that, he plans to take Fivetran public.
$5.6B cloud company Fivetran acquired its way to survival



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