Veeva

Veeva: the first multi-billion-dollar bet on vertical SaaS

Zak Kukoff explains that a decade ago nobody thought vertical SaaS was investable; the conventional wisdom was to go horizontal. Veeva, a Salesforce-for-pharma, was the first multi-billion-dollar vertical SaaS hit, going straight from Series A to IPO with Emergence as the only institutional Series A lead.

“And Veeva was the first multi-billion-dollar hit in vertical SaaS. It was kind of Salesforce, but just for pharmaceutical companies. And they've done phenomenally well. We were the only institutional investor who led their Series A, and they went straight from Series A to IPO. So a huge, huge outcome there.”

Boring beats sexy: TechCrunch hype invites competition

Kukoff makes the case for boring businesses: the more press and TechCrunch attention you get, the more competitors fight for your market. Staying under the radar, like Veeva, lets you dominate a huge market quietly.

“And by the way, boring is good. The more like sexy, big, like press and TechCrunch stuff you get, the more competition you have for that slice of your market. If you are boring, under the radar, like Veeva, great example, right? No one knows who they are. Multibillion-dollar company that only raised one round of funding in a huge, like, big whale hunting market.”

Steal thisPick a boring, under-the-radar market so you face less hype-driven competition.