B2B SaaS Dinner - Insights, investments & innovations
Earlier this month, we hosted our annual B2B SaaS roundtable dinner at The Stafford London. Convening Founders, CEOs, Boards, Operators and Investors from the B2B SaaS industry, this intimate dinner of 25 provided an exclusive opportunity for senior leaders from some of the fastest growing companies to come together.
At a time when the B2B SaaS sector is experiencing unchartered levels of opportunity, investment, disruption and change, the evening allowed for the sharing of insights, issues and provided an opportunity to make valuable connections.
As conversation unfolded under Chatham House rules, one guest posed a question to the table: what can be done in the European tech community to encourage companies to list locally on the continent’s own stock exchanges?
Several high-profile companies have looked to the USA in recent years, and many executives sympathised with founders making this decision. It was broadly agreed that American asset managers and public equity analysts demonstrate greater fluency and appreciation of core SaaS growth metrics, and greater nuance in their thinking around the long run possible cash flows of growth stocks.
But investors around the table also regretted this reality, and noted its consequences: European pensions, which are mostly exposed to local indexes like the FTSE, are deprived of exposure to the returns that Europe’s most category-defining companies could drive over the coming decades.
Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh-based asset manager renowned for its technology growth investing, was cited as a rare exception to this rule. One Founder/CEO wondered if things will finally change once Europe successfully creates a company of FAANG scale, triggering domestic investors to wake up to the opportunity they once missed.
The conversation then turned to debating the virtues of bootstrapping - after years of access to cheap capital in a low interest environment that’s now dramatically changing, is there something to be said for the Founders that prioritise solving profitability early on and approaching growth in a more measured manner without outside investment? One investor noted the distinctive character such founders typically display, whilst another CEO defended the benefits that VC funds can often inject into management execution discipline.
A few final thoughts were shared on talent. Several founders and executives noted how scarce great enterprise marketers remained in Europe, and the wide variance in marketing strategies that early SaaS scale-ups continue to deploy. One executive shared their learnings and encouraged a talent-first approach; instead of moulding individuals into pre-defined roles and strategies, it’s often more productive to start with an individual’s strengths and passions before shaping a role around them.
Another investor emphasised the importance of Founders resisting the temptation to hold onto formative early hires that are no longer valuable in later growth phases, building the courage to proactively acknowledge when succession planning is needed.
The perspectives, stories and insights shared on the night were abundant, and we are grateful to everyone who attended.
This roundtable dinner was part of our Digital Masters Programme, covering Board Dinners in Europe’s key and emerging tech hubs, other functional roundtables and our flagship event, the Digital Masters Awards. If you are interested in attending any of these invitation-only events, please get in contact with [email protected].