We all know that companies need an innovative, and constantly evolving, culture to grow and thrive. And that’s more important than ever in today’s ultra-competitive technology-job market.
How important? That’s made clear by this year’s Battery Ventures Highest-Rated Cloud Computing Companies to Work For rankings, which highlight private and public, B2B-focused cloud companies with stellar records of employee satisfaction, as measured by employee feedback provided by Glassdoor*. It’s the third year Battery has leveraged data from Glassdoor to compile the two lists. And this year’s results show that it took a higher score than ever to make both the public and the private list—4.5 (out of five) for private companies and 4.2 for public ones.
And despite the competition, seven standout, privately-held companies have managed to make our list three years in a row.
Battery Ventures General Partner Neeraj Agrawal says the ever-rising culture bar for cloud companies reflects several factors. First, the economy continues to chug along, allowing employees to be more discerning about where they work—which forces companies to respond and treat current and prospective employees well.
Second, Agrawal notes, the market for cloud technology itself today is particularly brisk, driven by new innovations and also some recent, high-profile exits of cloud software and infrastructure companies. Indeed, eight private companies from last year’s highest-rated cloud companies list have since gone public or been acquired. Just last week, cloud videoconferencing company Zoom staged a high-profile IPO. The week before that, cloud IT “incident response” company PagerDuty also saw its shares debut. (Both companies are on this year’s private-company list because their IPOs occurred after our deadline for collecting company data.)
A Wall Street Journal story last week, in fact, pointed out that since 2016, shares of the 50 business-software companies that have gone public have significantly outperformed the 13 new, consumer-technology offerings in the same period. The B2B software companies saw their shares rise by a median of 126%, compared to just 15% for the consumer IPOs.
Indeed, cloud technology continues to seep in into new corporate functions and industries, including everything from sales and marketing technology, to IT operations, to industry-specific markets like plumbing and physical therapy. It’s all made cloud companies very hot places to work for many employees.
But great company culture isn’t just about free lunches, dogs at the office and ping-pong tables. Our data shows some real connections between company culture and financial performance: The companies on our list boast significantly higher positive employee “business outlook” ratings than the Glassdoor average, for example. And our analysis also revealed that the median company on our public list trades at a higher revenue multiple than companies not on the list, according to research firm CapIQ.
Meanwhile, the fast-growing companies on our private list together employ more than 24,000 people and added 41% of those employees in the last year.
Finally, it’s clear that no geography has a monopoly on cloud culture. California continues to lead the pack as the home to 60% of the private companies on our highest-rated list and 64% of those on our public list. But, as we’ve seen in previous years, highly-rated cloud companies continue to be founded in states like Utah, New York, Washington and Illinois. This year, the No. 1 company on our private list, Pendo*, is based in North Carolina, and the top public company, Hubspot, is headquartered in Massachusetts.
Here are the full lists of the 2019 Battery Ventures Highest Rated Cloud Computing Companies to Work For:
Methodology: The private- and public-company reports identify cloud computing companies that are highest rated on Glassdoor, based on company ratings shared by employees. To be considered, a cloud company must have received at least 30 company reviews on Glassdoor as of 3/21/19. The private-company report tracks independent, non-public cloud companies that, according to Battery research and data from research service Crunchbase, are based in the U.S.; have a B2B business model; are categorized as SaaS, cloud-computing and/or enterprise software, according to Crunchbase; have more than 200 employees (as of 4/12/2019, according to company data provided to LinkedIn and Battery research); and have raised funding on or after 7/01/2015). The public-company report tracks public cloud companies with a B2B business model that have at least $500 million in total enterprise value as of March 31, 2019, according to CapIQ.
A company’s CEO approval rating and positive business outlook rating—indicating the percentage of employees who believe their employer’s business will get better in the next six months–was not taken into account to determine rank or overall company rating on either list, though we display these added data points for additional insight into each of these companies.
*By a company name denotes a current or past Battery investment. For a full list of all Battery investments and exits, please click here.
**Next to CEO approval rating or positive business outlook rating denotes that data is based on less than 30 ratings.
***Denotes a private company that went public or was acquired after 3/21/19
This material is provided for informational purposes, and it is not, and may not be relied on in any manner as, legal, tax or investment advice or as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any fund or investment vehicle managed by Battery Ventures or any other Battery entity.
The information and data are as of the publication date unless otherwise noted.
Content obtained from third-party sources, although believed to be reliable, has not been independently verified as to its accuracy or completeness and cannot be guaranteed. Battery Ventures has no obligation to update, modify or amend the content of this post nor notify its readers in the event that any information, opinion, projection, forecast or estimate included, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate.
The information above may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or expectations. Predictions, opinions and other information discussed in this video are subject to change continually and without notice of any kind and may no longer be true after the date indicated. Battery Ventures assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update forward-looking statements.
*Denotes a Battery portfolio company. For a full list of all Battery investments, please click here.
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