Zuora Lands $50 Million Series E on Back of “Subscription Economy”
In Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo’s worldview, just about any service or product that would make sense to be sold as part of a subscription business model, should be. And the rise in popularity of subscription offerings in the software, commerce and digital-media categories are just the beginning of a broader change that will soon shape many other industries.
Tzuo’s pitch is self-serving, of course, but investors seem to like it; it has helped Zuora, which makes a billing platform to help software, media and telecom companies manage subscriptions, raise a fresh investment round of $50 million.
“It isn’t just about taking HR and procurement and moving it to the cloud,” said Tzuo, one of Salesforce.com’s earliest employees. “It’s about a fundamental change in consumer behavior — companies and people wanting to subscribe.”
Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, Northgate and Next World Capital all participated. A long list of current investors, which includes Shasta Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Marc Benioff, also contributed in the round.
Zuora is seeing annual revenue in the mid-eight-figure range, according to Tzuo, from a client base that includes Box, DocuSign and Dell.
The company has now raised more than $132 million.