Thoughts on $100 Million ARR, and Looking to the Future
As the year comes to a close, it’s normal for CEOs to reflect on the preceding 12 months. This is a special time in the history of Egnyte, so this look-back can only be done with the additional perspective of the past 12 years, as well as a look forward to 2020.
I don’t easily fall victim to hyperbole, but 2019 was momentous in the history of our company. On the heels of a major investment by Goldman Sachs at the end of 2018, we strengthened our executive team with key hires in marketing, sales, and strategy, expanded our workforce footprint with a new office in Raleigh, North Carolina and brought our global team to more than 700 employees. We initiated key partnerships with major industry vendors, were recognized as a leader by the analyst community, and crossed an important financial milestone -- as TechCrunch reported last week, Egnyte achieved $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2019.
As has been said by many market-watchers, getting to $100M is no small feat, especially in a time where “growth at any cost” has seemingly been gospel among those in pursuit of Unicorn club membership. But Egnyte has deliberately taken a fiscally responsible path, focusing on building a sustainable business and emphasizing profitability.
That mindset has guided us as we’ve evolved. We used a lot of market and technology foresight to arrive here, but we’ve also had the good fortune to have the world’s greatest customers who have shared with us insights about how they work and what they need to be successful.
Egnyte started our path by delivering world-class content collaboration. We segmented pain points and courted customers by providing a single solution to an individual problem. Gartner called the space Enterprise File, Sync & Share (EFSS), and it was popular. So popular, in fact, we quickly realized the need to distinguish ourselves.
But rather than looking just at market trends, we listened to our customers. Their world was increasingly met by the competing issues of massively growing amounts of content, and the rise of cyber attacks that targeted this important data. The world became awash in security companies promising risk detection at in every corner of the digital environment, but none could address the most important issue facing companies: the data targeted by cyber attacks were inside files, and if an attacker could get past firewalls or compromise a user account, the data was vulnerable. The result was a new-found emphasis on content security and governance.
We recognize the importance of giving our customers a comprehensive platform that integrates content management with data security. Using the Egnyte architecture, which was purpose-built for enterprises, we are delivering to customers a unique platform that blends content collaboration and content governance. This will drive Egnyte’s continued product and technology leadership, in close alliance with customers and partners who are demanding a better way to operate.
Egnyte’s evolution as a platform is also driving the future of our business – internally and externally, and this is borne out in excellent performance in 2019, and especially in moving beyond $100 million in revenue. Our leadership team, including our board members, has always looked forward to an IPO as an interim milestone – and that has not changed. Today, we believe Egnyte has the ability to be a multi-billion dollar company. We will remain focused on building towards this goal by sticking to our values of putting customers and employees first, and emphasizing innovation and business leadership in everything we do.
