Beyond Benchmarks 2024

Emergence is thrilled to launch our inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks!

Over 20+ years, we have invested early in more than 100 enterprise cloud companies including iconic leaders such as Salesforce, Zoom, Veeva Systems, Doximity, Box and Bill.com. As a result of our exclusive focus on B2B cloud and the size of our portfolio, we have unique insight and perspective on emerging technology trends, market conditions and what constitutes operational excellence. Throughout our history, we have collected market data as well as quarterly operational and financial metrics for our companies, and we use this proprietary data set to help guide our Founders and executive teams. With Beyond Benchmarks, our ambition is to expand beyond our portfolio to play a similar role for the cloud ecosystem. Our goal is to share key data and insights from the current enterprise cloud market so that all enterprise founders and executives can make better informed decisions.

Beyond Benchmarks 2024 is based on data collected in April 2024 from over 600 B2B software companies that participated directly in our survey or through our Partner VCs. We also partnered with Crunchbase for data on the current fundraising environment.

Beyond Benchmarks 2024 covers three important topics:

1. GenAI Trends: We are in the early innings of the GenAI paradigm shift. How many companies have released GenAI features in their product? How are startups monetizing GenAI? What might the impact be on the financial profile of my business?
   
   
2. Fundraising Environment: The market for venture capital has shifted from the exuberance of 2021 to a more conservative environment. How has this impacted the number of investments at various stages? How has the shift impacted the size of rounds and valuations? What sectors remain attractive for fundraising? 
   
   
3. Company Performance Metrics: 2023 was a challenging year for B2B software companies. How did market headwinds impact growth and retention? How did sales efficiency and sales cycles shift? What did peers do in terms of cost reductions and how are peers planning for 2024? 

We encourage you to explore the detailed findings in this report and engage with us. What do you find particularly insightful? What can we explore further? How can we make this report more helpful for the ecosystem?

Thank you for participating as we move beyond benchmarks!