The top 10 largest B2B SaaS companies in the US

Top Business Tech takes a closer look at the largest US SaaS companies providing B2B service based on Mike Sonder’s stock market valuation list taken at the start of August 2021.

10. Twilio Inc.

Valuation: US$63.23bn

HQ: San Francisco, California, United States

Number of Employees: 5,752

American Cloud communications platform Twilio Inc. was founded in 2008 by Jeff Lawson, Evan Cooke, and John Wolthuis. The API allows users to send and receive SMS, MMS and OTT messages globally. Twilio uses Amazon Web Services to host its telephony infrastructure and has a set architectural design that protects itself against outages, including Amazon Web Services outage in April 2011.

Last month Twilio achieved full compliance with STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs/) protocols to combat the rise of illegal robocalls. This move sets to reinstate consumer trust in phone calls, which have been given rise to unwanted calls. The STIR/SHAKEN protocols were developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the SIP Forum. It verifies whether the caller has the right to use a calling number and that the caller is a known party by the originating party. 

9. Snowflake Inc.

Valuation: US$81.3bn

HQ: (2012-2021) Bozeman, Montana, United States (Now HQ-less.)

Number of Employees: 2,037 (2020)

Snowflake Inc. is one of the newer SaaS companies to make the top 10. Founded in 2012 by data warehousing experts: Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Żukowski, the company specialises in cloud computing-based data warehousing.

Last month, Snowflake announced its support for Unified ID 2.0 to better support organisations optimising their data-first advertising strategies. Unified ID 2.0 is an open-source, industry-governed identity solution. It seeks to preserve the value of relevant advertising while allowing consumers more control over their data. According to Snowflake, the following platforms accept Unified ID 2.0: The Washington Post, FuboTV, Tubi TV, Magnite, Oracle, Nielsen, LiveRamp.

“By adding the UID 2.0 solution to the Snowflake Data Marketplace, all Snowflake customers will be able to seamlessly leverage the integration and join their first- and third-party data in a privacy-conscious manner, activated directly from the Snowflake platform,” said Bill Stratton, Snowflake Global Head of Media and Advertising Industry. “We look forward to expanding our capabilities even more, to continue solving the key challenges for the advertising industry.”

8. Atlassian Corporation Plc

Valuation: US$112.3bn

HQ: Sydney, Australia

Number of Employees: 6,117 (2021)

Atlassian Corporation Plc (TEAM) is an Australian software company that has several products, the most notable of which include Jira, Trello and Confluence. Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar founded Atlassian in 2002. The company has nine offices in six countries: Amsterdam, Austin, New York, San Francisco and Mountain View, California, Manila, Yokohama, Bangalore, and Sydney. 

Though the company had faced loss following its shift to a cloud-based software model, its fiscal fourth-quarter detailed better-than-expected results, it reported its revenue of $560mn, 30% up from last year.

“Q4 was a great quarter – a ripper as we Aussies say,” co-CEOs Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a letter to shareholders. “We entered fiscal 2021 staring down uncertainty and bracing against headwinds. Yet, we exit it in a stronger position than ever. Over the past year, we took swift, bold action to continue our evolution into a cloud-first company and further our mission of unleashing the potential of every team. And it’s paying off.”  

7. Zoom Video Communications, Inc.

Valuation: US$112.6bn

HQ: San Jose, California, United States

Number of Employees: 4,422  (2021)

Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (ZM), or simply Zoom, has become a household name in the last year, accelerating the uptake in software to support remote work. The American communications company, which provides video calls and online chat services, was founded by former Cisco engineer Eric Yuan, in 2011. It ascended to “unicorn” status in 2017 and saw a drastic acceleration in adopting following the quarantine measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Last month, Zoom launched Zoom Apps and Zoom Events. “I’m thrilled to see our platform vision expand through Zoom Apps and Zoom Events, as the world embraces hybrid work, empowering the workforce today and into the future,” said Eric S. Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom. “These innovations will enhance how we connect and collaborate with our colleagues, clients, friends, family members, and others, improving productivity and collaboration while maintaining elements of fun and well-being.”

6. Square, Inc.

Valuation: US$116.bn

HQ: San Francisco, California, United States

Number of Employees: 5,477 (2020)

Square, Inc. is an American fintech company that specialises in digital payments and was founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey. The company is named after its square-shaped card readers, which has evolved from a read head directly wired, to a 3.5 mm audio jack to a chip card and contactless reader, with an Apple-compatible version with a lightning cable released in 2018. In addition to this product, it also introduced a Square Stand, compatible with leveraging an iPad as a POS; a Bluetooth-connected reader for Android and iOS devices; and a small standalone point-of-sale system, Square Register, designed for SMEs. As of 2020, Square’s market capitalisation is valued at over US$100bn.

It was announced today that Square would Afterpay for $29bn as the ‘buy now, pay later’ service continues to book globally. In addition, the acquisition will accelerate Square’s strategic priorities for its Seller and Cash App ecosystems.

“Square and Afterpay have a shared purpose. We built our business to make the financial system more fair, accessible, and inclusive, and Afterpay has built a trusted brand aligned with those principles,” said Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder and CEO of Square. “Together, we can better connect our Cash App and Seller ecosystems to deliver even more compelling products and services for merchants and consumers, putting the power back in their hands.”

5. ServiceNow, Inc.

Valuation: US$144.8bn

HQ: Santa Clara, California, United States

Number of Employees: 12,500+ (2020)

ServiceNow, Inc. is another American SaaS company specialising in digital workflows. It was founded in 2004 by Fred Luddy under Glidesoft Inc, which changed to its current name a year later. In 2018, it ranked as the number one most innovative company.

Last month, in response to the growing need for hybrid work, ServiceNow announced that its flagship product would integrate with Windows 365 to let users efficiently request, approve and receive Cloud PCs. 

This month it has released its Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results, which significantly exceeded earning expectations. Its subscription revenue was powered by this success, with subscription revenues of $1,330mn in Q2 2021, representing 31% year-over-year growth and 27% adjusted for constant currency. 

4. Intuit Inc.

Valuation: US$185.0bn

HQ: Mountain View, California, United States

Number of Employees: 10,600 (2021)

intuit inc is a US business that provides fintech software. Founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx, Intuit has a range of SaaS products such as TurboTax, Mint, Credit Karma and QuickBooks. In 2020, it ranked in Forbes Best Employers for Diversity, and its CEO and leader Sasan Goodarzi ranked 16th in Fortune’s Business Person of the Year. 

An April 2021 study by QuickBooks found that almost half (47%) of small businesses started processing payments using a new method since COVID-19. Last month, Intuit’s QuickBooks introduced new hardware to enhance mobile payment offerings for small businesses. 

“It’s our mission to improve cash flow health for small businesses. With the addition of QuickBooks Card Reader to our portfolio of money offerings, we continue to make it easier for small businesses to get paid,” said Rania Succar, Senior Vice President of Intuit QuickBooks Money Offerings. “These industry-leading payment hardware solutions that pair seamlessly with the QuickBooks platform further enhance our robust end-to-end payments offering for small businesses and provide flexibility depending on how they do business and how their customers want to pay.”

3. Shopify Inc.

Valuation: US$235.0bn

HQ: Ottawa, Canada

Number of Employees: 7,000

Shopify Inc. is a Canadian e-commerce company that was founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake. As of May 2021, Shopify has over 1,700,000 businesses in approximately 175 countries using its platform, and According to Builtwith, 1.58 million websites run on Shopify as of 2021. As a result, this year, it has become the largest publicly traded Canadian company by market capitalisation. 

At Unite 2021, Shopify announced major updates to Shopify, including its online store 2.0, custom storefronts, meta fields and custom content, a faster checkout experience, as well as checkout extensions and Shopify scripts. 

“The internet is the world’s largest city, and Shopify is building its commerce infrastructure,” said Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify. “Especially over the past year, we saw independent businesses succeed by showing up creatively and uniquely in this city. The future of commerce on the internet relies on creative expression at every touchpoint. Together with developers, we are building the infrastructure to make this possible.”

2. Salesforce.com, inc.

Valuation: US$297.1bn

HQ: San Francisco, California, United States

Number of Employees: 60,000 (2021)

Founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez, Salesforce.com, inc. (CRM) was one of the first SaaS companies to emerge. Its products include Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Platform, Marketing Cloud. Commerce Cloud, and Community Cloud.

Salesforce has a wealth of subsidiaries, including Quip, Demandware, Heroku, MuleSoft, Tableau Software, Acumen Solutions, and Slack Technologies. Salesforce completed its acquisition of business communication tool Slack Technologies at the end of July 2021. Since its founding, Salesforce has squired 50 organisations.

“We couldn’t be more excited to have Slack as part of the Salesforce family, combining the #1 CRM and the trailblazing digital platform for the work anywhere world,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce. “Together we’ll define the future of enterprise software, creating the digital HQ that enables every organisation to deliver customer and employee success from anywhere.”

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1. Adobe Inc.

Valuation: US$297bn

HQ: San Jose, California, United States

Number of Employees: 22,516 (2020)

 Adobe Inc is the largest SaaS company in the world, with a market valuation of US$297bn. Founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, Adobe has always been a software specialised for creating media such as graphics, photography, animation and video. Its flagship products are household names, including Photoshop image editing software, Adobe Illustrator vector-based illustration software, Adobe Acrobat Reader and the Portable Document Format (PDF). However, with the addition and development of numerous products over the years, including Macromedia, and InDesign, Adobe has evolved to a SaaS subscription offering, Adobe Creative Cloud. 

Today Adobe has offices worldwide, with 40% of its staff located at its HQ, San Jose. It has been ranked highly in Glassdoor and Fortune’ list of the World’s Best Places to Work. It also supports many initiatives for individuals to improve skills, including the launch of its Adobe Analytics for Higher Education, which seeks to advance digital literacy. 

“Adobe is driving digital transformation for major brands in every sector, and the one thing we consistently hear is how difficult it is to hire the right talent,” said Amit Ahuja, vice president, Experience Cloud Platform and Products at Adobe. “Digital literacy is paramount for students in today’s digital economy, and this program meets the needs of today’s employers while exposing students to careers they may not have considered.” 

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