Emergence: Top Quartile Startups Are Still Growing 100% at $10m in ARR | SaaStr

So Emergence Capital put together a great report here on B2B startups, “Beyond Benchmarks 2024”, with a ton of great data across 664 software startups.

One piece I loved is how 2023 growth rates compared to 2022 for Top Quartile Software Startups.

Now to be clear, and I know this is a bit brutal — “Top Quartile” isn’t in general enough to get funded by VCs.  They’re looking for Top Decile, or more specifically, startups that can at least Triple Triple Double Double from $1m ARR on.  More on that here:

But top quartile is still a great benchmark to compare and learn from your peers:

• From $1m-$5m ARR, top quartile startups are growing 100% still.  But the median is only growing 53%.  A huge gap.
• From $5m-$20m ARR, top quartile startups are growing 58%. The media is 29%.  Not fundable, but still a growth rate that can compound to something awesome over time.
• Things get tough from $20m-$50m.  Top quartile still are growing 38% — but the bottom are shrinking at -7%.  The wall many in SaaS hit if they don’t push through it.  When new entrants and change pass them by.

A few other interesting data points:

• 60% of B2B startups have already integrated GenAI in their products
• It takes 22 months now to raise a Series A, and 25 months to raise a Series B
• NRR is down across the board, but top quartile startups all still have 100%+ NRR on average
• As startups cross $50m ARR, 40% of their new bookings come from upsell
• True CACs on average are still at 20+ months across all categories
• Startups at $5m+ ARR are already crossing $200,000 in revenue per employee
• Actually, 79% of startups did not increase pricing last year

Lots more good stuff in the report here.

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• Source: https://www.saastr.com/emergence-top-quartile-startups-are-still-growing/