By Bessemer Venture Partners, Contributor
Since 2016, The Cloud 100 has recognized and celebrated the world's top 100 private cloud companies and is a collaboration by Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures and Forbes. Companies named to the list are recognized within the industry as top-tier private ventures leading the cloud and AI technology revolution.
Category leaders such as DocuSign, PagerDuty, Twilio and Toast have joined the Cloud 100 ranks, scaled into enterprises, transformed their given industries and gone on to IPO. Here’s how these esteemed companies, the definitive cohort of top-performing cloud businesses, end up on the list.
At Bessemer, we spend months compiling, verifying and analyzing submission data to determine The Cloud 100. The ranking and list analysis is based on a meticulous process involving four key stages.
First, every Spring, Cloud 100 nominations open to the public and anyone can submit a cloud business for consideration. Only independent cloud companies that have not historically had a majority strategic or private equity M&A transaction or public listing are eligible for the list.
Nominations require companies to answer questions on topics such as category, historical and financial performance, firm culture, employee makeup, business priorities and objectives. In some cases, the previous year’s Cloud 100 and Rising Stars rankings are also considered.
Nominations are sorted into the following 10 categories of cloud companies: AI; Data and Infrastructure; Fintech; Design, Collaboration, and Productivity; Sales, Marketing, and CX; Security; Finance and Legal; HR; Developer; and Vertical Software. As the nature of the cloud ecosystem has broadened over time, these categories have also taken on more expansive definitions themselves (e.g., the AI category now includes compute startups, the Fintech category has grown as financial services startups release more and more cloud software products as part of their platform).
Once compiled, the list is evaluated and ranked by a panel of recognized category leaders within the cloud ecosystem, who are also welcomed to nominate additional companies as well. These public CEOs and technology experts are often leaders of Cloud 100 graduates. We also may consult a variety of top-tier banks who can help us further refine the list by sharing their perspectives on the companies’ potential paths to liquidity. Bessemer then reviews the list with Forbes, which performs due diligence reporting to help determine the final ranking.
There are four factors we weigh during the evaluation process:
To determine market leadership (35%) the official Cloud 100 judge panel, composed primarily of public Cloud CEOs, provides their qualitative input and assessment of the companies’ market leadership in various Cloud sectors. Then, an estimate of valuation (30%) is determined based on third-party data providers. Sometimes, this is a range rather than a specific number. Factoring in operating metrics (20%) is also a key part of the nomination process. Ranges are collected on financial metrics like revenue and growth rate.
Financial information requested in the nomination form is a core part of the evaluation process, though it is optional. Financial information is viewed only as described in the Privacy Policy and will never be shared with our judges or event partners. Judges receive a summary numerical score to protect the confidential data of nominees. No financial information is shared publicly without company approval (except for names of winners, the final ranking and anonymized benchmarking data). The only time financial information may be shown publicly is in aggregate form for benchmarking purposes.
In addition to the factors above, a company’s people and culture (15%) play a determining role in list placement. Based on third-party data providers, each company is evaluated on their size and their diversity and inclusion efforts.
Any private cloud company can be considered for The Cloud 100. Those that have raised less than $25 million may be considered for Rising Stars, a separate list of 20 category-leading cloud companies poised to one day join the ranks of The Cloud 100.
Rising Stars are evaluated by Bessemer, Salesforce Ventures and Forbes based on their unique product differentiation, team background and relevant expertise, size of market opportunity and ability to execute in generating early momentum.
THE CLOUD 100 2024
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DISCLOSURES
In instances where the company did not disclose information, Forbes uses data provided by PitchBook. This was done for the following companies’ valuation data, unless otherwise specified: OpenAI, Icertis, Guild, Cohere (funding and valuation), Attentive, ServiceTitan, Automation Anywhere, LaunchDarkly, Mistral, Claroty and Abridge (valuation).
Bessemer Venture Partners is an investor in the following companies: Canva, ServiceTitan, Zapier, Guild, Hibob, Forter, LaunchDarkly, Intercom, DeepL, Papaya Global, Axonius, Perplexity, Claroty, Melio and Abridge.
Salesforce Ventures is an investor in the following companies: Databricks, Stripe, Anthropic, Wiz, Miro, TalkDesk, Gusto, Notion, Tanium, Snyk, Airtable, Zapier, Plaid, Dialpad, AppsFlyer, Guild, 1Password, Automation Anywhere, Airwallex, Workato, Gong, Pendo, Forter, Razorpay, Automattic, Own Company, Algolia, Hugging Face, Glean, Contentful, Vercel, Mistral AI, Runway, Melio and Cohere.
*Salesforce has exited all investments from 6sense.
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