Billion Dollar Unicorns: Competition for DocuSign Heating Up

According to a Reports Monitor report published last year, the global digital signature market is estimated to grow by more than 31% annually over the next six years. Billion Dollar Unicorn DocuSign (Nasdaq: DOCU) is a leading player in the segment that is counting on growth driven by the increasing penetration of internet and the growing acceptance of e-signatures in the Banking, Financial services, and Insurance sector.

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Combined Cloudera and Hortonworks Plan to Take on Amazon

According to a Zion Market research report, the global hadoop market was estimated to grow at CAGR of 50% to $87.14 billion by the end of 2022. Billion Dollar Unicorn Cloudera (NYSE: CLDR) is a leading player in the segment which recently strengthened its standing in the market by announcing its merger with rival Hortonworks.

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Cloud Stocks: How Will Carbon Black Differentiate?

A recent GM Insights report estimates the global endpoint security market to grow to more than $7.5 billion by 2024 driven by the rising adoption of Bring-Your-Own-Devices (BYOD) in organizations. Waltham, Massachusetts-based Carbon Black (Nasdaq: CBLK) is a leading player in this industry.

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Freshworks Has Acquired Nine Capital Efficient Startups

Six months back, B2B SaaS vendor Freshworks, formerly known as Freshdesk, raised $100 million at a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion, marking its entry into the Billion Dollar Unicorn Club. It recently reported profitability in FY2017-2018 ending March 2018. Unlike most other unicorns, Freshworks has an eye on fundamentals, a byproduct, I should like to believe, of my badgering them for years. After my recent Bootstrapping to an Exit article, I have been analyzing the acquisition strategies of Indian companies like Zomato and CarDekho. Freshworks is a unicorn that has expanded its product portfolio with nine strategic acquisitions of capital-efficient startups. >>>

Cloud Stocks: Netflix Price Hike Ruffles Competition

According to an eMarketer report, Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) accounted for nearly 86.7% of the US subscription Over-the-Top (OTT) video users in 2018. In 2019, the US OTT viewership is estimated to grow 2.5% to 205 million people with Netflix expected to retain market leadership. But there are several players in the market wanting to challenge its dominance. The competition in the market is surely heating up.

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IBM Counts on Red Hat Acquisition to Deliver Growth

IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings that surpassed market expectations and sent the stock climbing 7% higher in the after-hours session. This was also the first time since 2011 that the company reported growth in revenues for the full year. Its robust performance was driven by growth in the cloud segment – an area of focus for IBM’s turnaround strategy.

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Cloud Stocks: Bootstrapped Unicorn Atlassian is Acquiring Capital Efficient Startups

According to a recent MarketsAndMarkets report, the global enterprise collaboration software market is estimated to grow 11% annually over the next five years to 59.86 billion by 2023 from $34.57 billion in 2018. Billion Dollar Unicorn Atlassian (Nasdaq: TEAM) is a leading service provider in this market which delivered a stellar quarterly performance recently.

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Is Percolate Ready to Acquire?

According to a MarketsandMarkets report published last October, the global content marketing platform market is estimated to grow from $4.12 billion in 2018 to $9.59 billion by 2023. That translates to an annualized growth rate of more than 18% over the five-year period. New York-based Percolate is among the leading content marketing solutions providers in the market. Here is its story. >>>

CarDekho Bootstrapped First, Raised Money Later, Acquiring Bootstrapped Startups

According to IBEF, the Indian automotive industry is expected to reach INR 16.16-18.18 trillion (US$ 251.4-282.8 billion) by 2026. The growth is expected to be driven by increasing middle-class income and a young population. Auto portal CarDekho was bootstrapped and profitable for six years before it raised external funding. It is a textbook case study of a capital-efficient startup that has acquired several bootstrapped startups as discussed in my recent article on Bootstrapping to Exit. >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Taxify Makes it Difficult for Uber

There aren’t many stories that one hears about Billion Dollar Unicorn players out of East European countries like Estonia. But ride-sharing service provider Taxify is one such rare gem. The company is already giving Uber tough competition in Europe.

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