Seismic, a leader in marketing and sales enablement, has been named to the Forbes 2019 Cloud 100, the conclusive ranking of the top 100 private cloud companies worldwide, published by Forbes in association with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures.
This is the first year when a sales enablement automation company has been awarded a position on the Forbes Cloud 100 ranking. In the past few years, sales enablement has gained recognition as a necessity for solving challenges around sales and marketing misalignment, content personalization at scale, and the ability to act on data-driven marketing and sales insights. In fact, the Seismic-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, The State of Enterprise Sales Enablement, 2019, found that one of the biggest differences between organizations that hit revenue goals and those that don’t is the organization’s ability to take advantage of sales enablement ‘insights’ as part of a mature sales strategy.
Seismic’s ranking in the 2019 Forbes Cloud 100, in addition to other recent industry accolades, such as being named a 2019 Sales and Marketing Technology Award Winner by the Business Intelligence Group, indicates sales enablement’s importance, and Seismic’s leadership position in the category.
CEO and co-founder, Seismic, Doug Winter said that “Having gone from our first round of funding in 2013 to being named to the 2019 Forbes Cloud 100 list, is incredibly humbling. So much of where Seismic and the sales enablement industry is today can be attributed to our outstanding customers. Enterprises and fast-growing companies across financial services, high-tech, manufacturing, and many other industries, are successfully using Seismic as a cornerstone of their go-to-market strategies. In doing so, they’re expanding the global importance of sales enablement, and are hugely to thank for Seismic receiving the honor of being named one of the best private cloud companies in the world.”
As part of the strict selection procedure for the Forbes 2019 Cloud 100, Bessemer Venture Partners received submissions from hundreds of cloud startups. The Cloud 100 Judging Panel, made up of public cloud company CEOs, reviewed the information to select, score, and rank the top 100 private cloud businesses from all around the world. The assessment process involved ranking companies over four important factors, that are market leadership (35%), estimated valuation (30%), operating metrics (20%), and people & culture (15%).
Byron Deeter, a top cloud investor, and partner at Bessemer Venture Partners congratulated the founders of the organizations and said that the private cloud ecosystem has matured, making the competition to land one of the coveted spots on the Cloud 100 list steeper than ever. He further added that in fact, the average valuation of a company on Bessemer inaugural list just four years ago was $1 billion, while the average valuation on this year’s list spiked to $1.7 billion. Forbes 2019 Cloud 100 includes over 60 private cloud unicorns! These founders resemble the absolute best in cloud computing today, and they will most certainly follow in the footsteps of their esteemed Cloud 100 alumni. In total, already 25 Cloud 100 alumni have gone public, and more have been acquired for over $1 billion each.
Alex Konrad, Forbes editor of The Cloud 100 stated that for four years now, they have ranked the best and brightest emerging companies in the cloud sector. With so many companies growing rapidly in the cloud, from cybersecurity and marketing to data analytics and storage, it’s difficult than ever to make the Cloud 100 list, but with the more elite company. He also congratulated to the honorees of 2019 Cloud 100 and the 20 Rising Stars.