Podium is back at the fundraising well this year, adding $201 million to its accounts at a $3 billion valuation (post-money).
The Utah-based company, which provides software services including communications and payments tools to SMBs, last raised $125 million at a roughly $1.5 billion valuation. That deal was announced in April 2020.
Podium CEO Eric Rea told Bloomberg that the company has “well over $100 million in annual recurring revenue.” TechCrunch confirmed the metric with the company, though Podium declined to be more specific regarding its current ARR.
Podium previously reached the $50 million ARR mark around the time of its $60 million Series B in November 2018. And we know that it climbed to $100 million ARR toward the end of 2019. This makes the question of how far above the $100 million ARR mark Podium is today rather important — we can’t effectively calculate the company’s growth rate without an up-to-date figure.
Recall that Podium felt cheap during its last raise, given its revenue base and $1.5 billion price tag. The company declined to share a growth target for 2021 or answer our question regarding whether it hopes to match this year’s growth rate in 2022. Given that it has an ocean of new capital, we were curious about how bold its growth plans were for the coming year. Surely money helps.
The company also declined to share IPO plan timing or notes on any notable shifts in its economics. Podium only wants to talk about its new fundraising and valuation today, apart from some very non-GAAP figures like how many “local businesses” use its service.
It’s a bummer, given that Podium, earlier in its life, was a great example of a company that was more transparent than most when it came to sharing financial information.
The lack of hard financial results makes Podium’s upcoming IPO — Bloomberg quotes an investor in the company saying that it will “definitely” go public — all the more curious. Given that we are going to see results for Podium’s current performance inside of its eventual S-1 filing, why not tell us now? (In an email, Podium said regarding its IPO timing that it is focused on “supporting as many local businesses as possible.”)
It’s not like the company should have anything to hide; it just doubled its valuation, so things must be going well in general. Right? Right.
Here’s a new rule that I think companies should follow: If your company is going public in the next two years, start sharing more concrete numbers now. We will get them eventually, so get accustomed to sharing!
The Utah angle
It was almost a disappointment when Utah-based Qualtrics sold to SAP. Now it is back as a public company, where Podium will join it eventually. And Weave, another Utah-based tech company, went public last week. Hell, we could toss the recent Divvy sale to Bill.com into this list as well.
Utah has been on a roll, but gone are the days when that felt like a story. I’ve covered the Utah scene long enough to have seen it grow from a place where external tech companies hired sales talent to a place where there were a few outlier companies to a market where generations of tech companies exit and recycle talent and money.
Back in 2019, I discussed companies “like Qualtrics, Weave, Podium, Divvy” with Lucid COO Dave Grow (Lucid is based in Utah). Since then, each of those companies has exited for serious money.
It’s a similar story to what we’re seeing in macro elsewhere, in markets like Brazil and India. Thus, Utah is essentially now unexceptional in its exceptionality, at least if we grade its present-year performance as a startup hub compared to, say, a decade ago. Many markets are doing well, making Utah simply another successful technology hub.
Of course, that’s what Utah and Midwest have long wanted. It’s just that now that they have managed it, it seems less unlikely, and thus perhaps less special, than we might have anticipated. And we won’t know how special Podium truly is till it coughs up some new numbers.
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