Wave Nabs Funding–On Free vs Paid
The other day SaaS Accounting vendor Wave announced that it had just closed $5 million in funding led by well respected VC, Charles River Ventures. While yet another vendor raising a series A wouldn’t usually be cause for comment, this is an interesting case in that Wave, as I’ve written about before, is a free [...]
FreeAgent Nabs Series B
News just in that UK SaaS accounting vendor FreeAgent has nabbed GBP2M in investment from SM Trust and Torch Partners. It’s an interesting development given the other two main players in the UK market, Xero and KashFlow are both currently well funded – Xero via an IPO and some subsequent private investment and KashFlow from [...]
Sage in the Cloud, but is it too little too late?
Last week Sage, the UK’s biggest accountancy software supplier, finally released their first real online accounting solution. It looks like a proper SaaS or Cloud offering, unlike the hosted Online 50 product sold through a few resellers from 6 years ago, or their previous failed attempt of SageLive in 2009. I would argue that because [...]
Software Marketing Pranks
I envy software marketing types. They get to stay kids forever: pull pranks and even get paid for it.:-) Today’s example comes courtesy of TechCrunch: PayPal competitor WePay dropped a 600lbs ice block at the entrance of the Paypal developer conference. They got chased away and Moscone security removed the ice block. My question: who [...]
On Bootstrapping. And Big Bucks. And Organic Growth
Recently there have been a few posts about growth through funding and growth through organic means. Tony Hsieh from Zappos told his tale of woe about the expectations of VC’s in terms of good exits. On the other hand, Sridhar Vembu, Founder of Zoho (disclosure – Zoho is exclusive sponsor of CloudAve) wrote an excellent [...]
Carry The One – E-Commerce Integration FTW
I’ve spoken many times before about the power of integration and what it can bring to businesses. I’ve also whined about the inefficiencies caused by separate, integrated services – one of my own businesses is a good example of this pain – having to receive e-commerce orders, manually enter them into and accounting package, manually [...]
SaaS, Accounting, Microsoft Money and Hyperbole.
Over on Accounting Web, a right royal stoush was started when Aqilla’s Hugh Scantlebury wrote an op ed piece opining what the withdrawal of Microsoft’s Office Accounting product means and, more importantly, what is behind the move. For those who need the history, Microsoft discontinued its Office Accounting product line, having determined that; existing free [...]
SaaS CEO on Improving Website Visitor to Trial User to Paying Customer Conversion
I don’t claim to be an expert in the area, so this is more a quick pointer then a real post. Well, too short for a post, too long for a tweet:-) Duane Jackson, CEO of SaaS accounting provider Kashflow writes up his experience of using Google Analytics and Website Optimizer to fine-tune his site [...]
SaaS Certainty – Escrow is the Answer
I got an email the other day from Escrow Associates, a provider of software escrow services that has just today announced the release of their SaaS software escrow agreement. For those not accustomed to escrow services, they are a contract where by the IP of a product is held by a third party and is [...]
Nibbling Around the Edges – KashGuard for KashFlow
(Updates below) One of the exciting parts about watching SaaS companies gain critical mass, is seeing the business that start up around them offering a related, but not core, piece of functionality. It’s always a relatively risky place for a vendor to be – they’re reliant on the “parent app”, and the more successful their [...]
KashFlow Scores SE Asia and Moves Locations
Lots of exciting news for KashFlow this week – a shift of location and a new partnership. Firstly they’re announcing a shift from Essex to London (that’s in England for the US readers ), at the same time they’ve appointed two new directors to the board. Lord Young, (yes, that’s a real Lord) a major [...]
Crunch Gets It So Right, and at the Same Time So Wrong
I don’t want to enter into a debate about acronyms – Microsoft’s Software + Services moniker gets some die hard Software as as Service loyalists all fired up. For the purposes of this post I’m going to take it as read that we all accept the second “S” to be the most important one – [...]
Credit Where Credit’s Due, But the Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating
Just thought I’d mix my metaphors a little, but in this case it’s an appropriate mix. I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Sage. Around the time of the ill-fated release of their SageLive product last year, I spent some time talking to the parent company in the UK about the offering and about SaaS [...]
Old-timers Getting SaaSy
I’m always looking for interesting tales that show the backroom moves of incumbent players manoeuvring into SaaS plays. My team of intel gatherers have picked up an interesting story along these lines. Late last year Michael Jackson, the ex-chairman of Sage, tried to buy UK SaaS accounting player KashFlow for £2.3m. At the time KashFlow [...]
Building Dialogue is the Most Important Thing
KashFlow recently announced its “HealthCheck”, a very simple report that is based on three areas of a businesses financial data and gives customers a score based on their performance. By KashFlow’s own account it is a simple introduction of a concept – as CEO Duane Jackson said to me; The report isn’t intended to be [...]
