Qualtrics Raises $180M, Now Valued At $2.5B

Investors are Insight Venture Partners, Accel, and Sequoia Capital.

There have been murmurs about the possibility of a Qualtrics IPO for quite some time now. Even earlier this week, TechCrunch released a profile on Qualtrics and co-founder Ryan Smith wondering if an IPO is imminent.

Hint: it’s not.

Today’s news puts IPO speculation to bed, at least for awhile — Qualtrics has raised $180 million in a round led by Insight Venture Partners and Accel, with participation from Sequoia Capital. With the capital infusion, Qualtrics is now valued at $2.5 billion.

“We have been following Qualtrics since 2010. Each year, they have surpassed aggressive goals and continued to stay cash flow positive. The company has even grown at an accelerating rate over this time, placing them among the best-performing enterprise software companies we’ve ever worked with,” said Ryan Sweeney, partner at Accel. “From a revenue standpoint, Qualtrics is already the size of most public companies and there’s room for a lot more growth considering the large and expanding market in which they play. The interest from investors everywhere underscores the notion that Qualtrics is likely the best private software company on the market today — we are very fortunate to be their partner.”

https://soundcloud.com/beehive-podcast/qualtrics-ceo-ryan-smith-homie

Qualtrics has now raised a total of $400 million in venture capital, most recently a $150 million round in 2014. Boosted by the investments, Qualtrics has grown accordingly — 10 global offices, 1,300+ employees, 8,000+ enterprise customers, a sponsorship deal with the Utah Jazz.

“Qualtrics is an outlier,” said Bryan Schreier, partner at Sequoia Capital. “They have delivered accelerating growth at nine-digit revenue numbers all while staying cash flow positive. We’re excited to work with the Qualtrics team on their continued market leadership and success.”

It remains to be seen when/if Qualtrics chooses to go public. Smith has been adamant that an IPO will happen, but he’s also been saying that for multiple years, including in the recent TechCrunch article I mentioned in the opening.

We know that there’s a huge opportunity here and we’re being very thoughtful about it because it’s not about going public. Going public is super easy to do. Just file the S-1 and we’re out,” Smith told me. “It’s about being public and how that works and getting the house in order to make sure that that’s the case. We’re going to be a great public company. We’re going public.

Another note of interest is Murray Demo joining the Qualtrics Board of Directors. Demo currently serves as CFO for Atlassian and has ample experience guiding a company through IPO, having helped Atlassian navigate their 2015 public offering. Is Qualtrics next? That remains to be seen…