We see the opportunity for growth around every corner. Whether it's scaling our portfolio companies or our investment in continuous learning as a team, we're always looking to move up and to the right.

Growth

We’re excited to share that two Camber portfolio companies, Beamer and Userflow, were recently recognized at SaaStock 2024 in Austin, TX.

The SaaStock conference series brings together many bright minds in SaaS each year from around the globe. This year’s event featured keynotes, panel discussions, and plenty of networking opportunities, and was a chance for industry leaders to share insights, collaborate, and celebrate successes. Coincidentally, the 2023 SaaStock conference is where the Camber team first met Userflow, and where the partnership was seeded.

During this year’s conference, Beamer was awarded the “Austin Rising Star” SaaS Revolutionaries award, which is a testament to the hard work, dedication, and innovative spirit of every member of the Beamer team.

Fireside Chat with Satya and Esben: Unpacking the Beamer and Userflow Merger

One of the highlights of SaaStock Austin 2024 was a moderated fireside chat featuring Satya Ganni, CEO of Beamer, and Esben Friis-Jensen, co-founder of Userflow. The two shared their experiences and insights on how they successfully merged the two companies, which had previously been built as lean product-led-growth platforms. Additionally, the two discussed the present gap in software tools for the Product org, and the combined company’s vision of offering a robust and consolidated toolkit for Product professionals.

The discussion provided valuable lessons on navigating the complexities of a merger while maintaining a focus on innovation and customer satisfaction, which both companies have been known for historically.

The story Satya and Esben shared displays the power of collaboration and strategic thinking in driving growth and creating synergies that benefit both companies and their end customers.

 was a result of the growth equity firm's Executive-in-Residence ('XIR') program, an approach where Camber identifies and partners with exceptional operating executives to invest in or acquire high-potential product-led growth (PLG) software companies. Ganni, an experienced operator in the space with three successful exits, was the firm's first XIR and will now lead the combined company through this next chapter of growth.

Beamer announced the strategic acquisition of Userflow

, which reinforces both companies' positions as leading providers of no-code product adoption and engagement platforms and expands the combined company's capabilities by offering a consolidated toolkit for Product teams across the world.

Beamer, founded by Mariano Rodriguez Colombelli and Spencer Coon, is a leading platform for customers looking to build better products and improve user engagement. The company's Changelog, NPS, and Feedback products serve as intuitive tools that facilitate better communication and feedback between businesses and their end-users, ultimately helping to increase engagement and reduce churn.

Userflow has distinguished itself in the SaaS world with its innovative no-code builder, enabling businesses to be more product-led. Founded in 2019 by Sebastian Seilund and Esben Friis-Jensen, Userflow has garnered attention from the global SaaS community as a bootstrapper's success story, having reached 

 without any external funding, and doing so through implementing product-led growth (PLG) best practices.

Camber Partners is a San Francisco Bay Area-based growth equity firm focused on scaling product-led growth software companies by providing flexible capital and dedicated operational resources. For more information, visit Camber Partners' 

Beamer and Userflow recognized at SaaStock 2024, featured in Fireside Panel

Camber Partners Welcomes New Talent to Growing Team


At Camber Partners, we are constantly striving to unlock the potential of SaaS businesses through flexible capital and exceptional operational collaboration. Today, we are thrilled to announce the expansion of our team, welcoming seasoned experts who embody our commitment to growth, quality, and data-driven execution.

Welcoming Ashley Lundquist as Vice President of Talent


Ashley Lundquist has joined Camber as the Vice President of Talent, bringing a wealth of experience from her time at high-growth software companies like Houzz, Drip, and Telesign. This background uniquely equips her to drive significant impact at Camber and its portfolio companies. As the first hire in Camber's new Talent Center of Excellence, Ashley is developing comprehensive recruiting strategies and talent management programs to ensure that Camber's portfolio can successfully attract, develop, and retain world-class talent.


Sergei Anikin and Igor Kostenko Join as XIRs


We are also excited to welcome Sergei Anikin and Igor Kostenko as Executives In Residence (XIR). Their operating experience in the SaaS domain will be invaluable in guiding our portfolio companies and partnering with best-in-class management teams. Both Sergei and Igor have demonstrated a remarkable ability to drive product innovation and operational excellence, resonating with Camber’s focus on capital efficiency and product quality, and we’re thrilled to have them aboard.


Sergei joins Camber from Pipedrive, where he was CTO and co-CEO. Prior to Pipedrive, Sergei held engineering leadership roles at Microsoft and Skype.
Igor joins Camber from PandaDoc, where he held numerous cross-functional positions spanning GTM and Corporate Development.



Finally, we’re eager to announce an addition to the Camber team as Will Buehler joins as associate. Prior to Camber, Will spent time at Stripes, where he participated in numerous growth- and early-stage investments across multiple SaaS verticals. Prior to Stripes, Will was an investment professional at Primus Capital, a growth-oriented private equity firm focused on leading software and tech-enabled companies.


As we continue to grow, Camber remains focused on investing in a select few companies each year, ensuring that each one receives our full attention and benefits from our data-driven approach​​​​. The addition of Ashley, Sergei, Igor, and Will to our team not only strengthens our leadership but also reinforces our commitment to being an investment firm built like a software company: emphasizing product quality, user experience, and sustainable growth​​​​.

Adds VP Talent, Execs-in-Residence, and Investment Professional

In a strategic move that marks a significant milestone in the Product Management landscape, 

 in a deal valued at more than $60 million. This acquisition reinforces both companies’ positions as leading providers of no-code product adoption and engagement platforms and expands the combined company’s capabilities by offering a consolidated toolkit for Product teams across the world. Beamer completed the acquisition with financial support from 

, the company’s lead investor, as well as 

Beamer is a leading platform for customers looking to build better products and improve user engagement. The company's Changelog, NPS, and Feedback products serve as intuitive tools that facilitate better communication and feedback between businesses and their end-users, ultimately helping to increase engagement and reduce churn.

Satya Ganni, CEO of Beamer, expressed his excitement about the acquisition,

"We are thrilled to welcome Userflow to the Beamer team. The talent and innovation that Sebastian and Esben have displayed in building Userflow is tremendous, and their no-code builder for in-app onboarding experiences complements Beamer’s mission to help companies build better products. We are also deeply grateful for the support and partnership from Camber Partners and Arsenal Growth, who have been instrumental in this journey."

Userflow, based in San Francisco, CA, has distinguished itself in the SaaS world with its innovative no-code builder, enabling businesses to be more product-led. Founded in 2019 by Sebastian Seilund and Esben Friis-Jensen, Userflow has garnered attention from the global SaaS community as a bootstrapper’s success story, having reached 

Sebastian Seilund, Co-founder and CEO of Userflow, shared his enthusiasm, 

"This is a proud moment for us at Userflow after embarking on this journey in 2019. Joining forces with Beamer and aligning with Camber's vision opens up brand-new and exciting opportunities for our customers. We're impressed with Beamer's comprehensive toolkit and excited about the combined potential to serve our global customer base even better."

Esben Friis-Jensen, Co-founder and CGO of Userflow, reflected on the journey,

"Starting as a bootstrapped endeavor, our journey at Userflow has been incredibly rewarding. We're pleased with this outcome and eagerly look forward to contributing to the combined company's vision, enhancing the prospects of successful product-led growth for SaaS businesses worldwide."

 was a result of the growth equity firm’s Executive-in-Residence (‘XIR’) program, an approach where Camber identifies and partners with exceptional operating executives to invest in or acquire high-potential product-led growth (PLG) software companies. Ganni, an experienced operator in the space with three successful exits, was the firm’s first XIR and will now lead the combined company through this next chapter of growth.

Justin Johnson, Vice President at Camber Partners, commented on the acquisition: 

"We've been deeply impressed by both companies’ ability to develop such outstanding platforms with lean teams and no historical funding– a testament to the potential of a product-led growth distribution model. Userflow’s dedication to building great products that customers adore perfectly aligns with Beamer's mission, and we're eager to see what the future holds for the combined company."

The acquisition of Userflow is timely, as many analysts have proclaimed that we are in a 

. The accelerated pace of technology development and adoption, the increase in digital transformation initiatives, consumer-like expectations for software products, and data-driven decision-making are all key trends that have resulted in the rise of the Product function, as well as the demand for best-in-class software tools that serve these teams’ needs. The market for DAP Platforms and Product Management suites are forecasted to grow to a combined $29 billion by 2030 according to Gartner and Growth Market Reports.

Beamer is a leading no-code product engagement platform that offers Changelog, Notification Center, NPS, and Feedback products. Easy to install and requiring no coding knowledge, Beamer is the go-to solution for Product leaders worldwide. To learn more, visit Beamer's 

Userflow is a leading platform for SaaS companies to manage user onboarding, retention and ongoing communication. The company has pioneered a builder for in-app onboarding, guides, and surveys, empowering SaaS businesses to increase conversion and retention. For more information, visit Userflow's 

Camber Partners is a San Francisco Bay Area-based growth equity firm focused on product-led growth software companies, providing flexible capital and dedicated operational resources. For more information, visit Camber Partners' 

Arsenal Growth Equity is an execution-stage growth equity firm based in Florida. Founded in 1999, Arsenal invests in emerging software companies across a myriad of sectors — targeting capital-efficient, high-growth businesses where they can leverage their operational and strategic network to help founders scale. For more information, visit Arsenal’s 

Camber portfolio company completes first acquisition, sets sights on becoming market-leading product adoption platform.

Beamer and Userflow Join forces in Strategic Acquisition Valued at more than $60M

Product-led growth (PLG) can seem like a panacea to a bootstrapped founder who has a product or engineering background. Theoretically, if a product meets a specific need and is well-designed, it can attract, engage, convert, and retain customers en masse. The resulting organization could be filled with developers and PMs, while automation does all the heavy lifting on the go-to-market side. The result would be both capital and operating efficiency and a company where the primary activity is solving customer needs through product development resources.

However, functions such as sales, marketing, and customer success are necessary for any successful SaaS business. Take a look at any scaled publicly traded PLG company, and you will see that they typically have sales teams that number in the hundreds, even for products with a low average selling price. Despite the complexity it adds to a product-centric organization, sales work.

At Camber, we see dozens of <$15MM revenue PLG companies per week. Yet, despite understanding the importance of the sales function, very few of the founders we meet have cracked the code regarding sales, despite several attempts to build out the process. Over the years, we've seen two primary failure patterns when trying to build a PLG sales organization.

Failure Scenario #1: The mid-market sales leader

When looking for a sales leader, it makes sense to look amongst the mid-level ranks of competitors in your market. They understand the product, market, and customer needs already, ensuring you will be off to the races from day one - they may even be able to bring a couple of new customers with them.

However, successful SaaS companies follow a predictable pattern of moving up-market: First, SMBs as customers, to the mid-market, and eventually to the enterprise. The economics make sense - big customers are less price sensitive, churn less often, and almost always have better net dollar retention, the most critical component of growth and market value in SaaS. With that move up-market, successful SaaS businesses evolve their GTM motion, layering outbound sales to mid-market customers as part of the mix. Success at outbound sales requires a significant capital investment in the team, data, and tools and it is unlikely to be a success without meaningful brand awareness in the market (i.e.,>$10m ARR). It also requires a new marketing effort to produce the sales content and collateral to convince prospective customers to take a first call.

To a founder, bringing in a mid-level sales leader who is looking to make the jump to VP Sales or CRO from within the industry seems attractive. In addition to all the relevant experience, they promise to add a new channel, outbound sales, to accelerate growth and the ability to attract larger customers with higher lifetime values.

Yet, when a new sales leader is brought in to scale the business, they often fail to scale revenue and are fired in 12 months, leaving behind a company with less cash on the balance sheet, a culture reticent to invest further in sales, and perhaps most concerning, a year's worth of under-performance in its bread and butter SMB segment. Why did it fail? Building an outbound motion requires significant capital to hire a team, patience to deal with much longer sales cycles, brand awareness, and a product that meets the needs of larger customers. These are all things a bootstrapped or lightly capitalized SaaS startup lacks.

Early in a PLG company's life, deals typically come in via self-service, assisted by customer support, with more significant sales opportunities handled by the Founder. Eventually, the volume becomes such that the CEO hires a salesperson to offload that work so they can focus on more strategic issues. The expectation is that this salesperson will have more time to focus and, therefore, run a more efficient process while experimenting with outbound and uncovering new channels. Due to the lead volume and budget, hiring a single junior-level salesperson is often the answer.

While freeing up the CEO's time certainly has value, this "Lone Wolf" salesperson rarely gets traction and offers little value to the organization. They struggle to replicate the CEO's close rates and ACVs, and the CEO often has to step into the process to win critical deals. It's frustrating to both the CEO and the salesperson.

Why isn't the junior salesperson successful?

Early-stage startups are usually bad at vetting sales candidates. If you've spent your career in product or engineering, you likely haven't hired many salespeople and will struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Startups hiring their first salesperson rarely have an effective sales onboarding process. Even with the CEO and product team spending time with the new hire, they are left to figure most things out independently.

Selling low-ASP products requires making many unwelcomed phone calls, writing unresponded emails, and generally banging your head against a wall for most of the day. It's easy for a single sales rep to be frustrated and lonely, especially in a remote work environment. Early career reps need community, comradery, and active sales management.

Founders and CEOs often underestimate how much easier it is for them to close a deal than it is for others in their company. They understand the customer's problem at their core, know every feature intimately, and have the moral authority to make a small change to a particular element. They are also able to commit to an adjustment in the product roadmap, or get the dev team to work over the weekend to build a feature to land a big deal. The “Lone Wolf” has none of these things and will, therefore, never be as effective as selling.

An ambitious, high-potential early-career seller will likely leave for a more attractive opportunity with better career prospects within a year. If they're not, then they might stick around but will not move the needle at the company.

We've seen these failure scenarios and variants firsthand, which is why we've built a repeatable solution for our portfolio companies, the Camber Sales Center of Excellence in Austin, Texas. We've hired sales leaders with experience from successful PLG companies like Solarwinds, Datadog, Cornerstone on Demand, and ZenOss to recruit, onboard, train, and manage sales teams on behalf of our portfolio companies.

The benefit to Camber portfolio companies is that they leverage decades of experience hiring and managing low-cost, activity-based sellers instead of having to figure it out themselves or investing in sales leadership until their GTM is proven scalable. In addition, international portfolio companies benefit from our US-based team with native English speakers and US-timezone availability.

The result is that Camber portfolio companies are assured that a high-quality sales process is deployed to test the profitability and scalability of multiple sales motions and that the infrastructure is in place to scale the sales organization when the company is ready.

Highlighting where many PLG companies often stumble in their sales strategy.

Sales in a PLG World:  Challenges and the Path Forward

Camber Partners is excited to announce our Executive-in-Residence (XIR) program formally.  Our goal for the XIR program is to identify and work with exceptional operating executives on identifying and acquiring high-potential product-led growth (PLG) software companies.  During the roughly six-month program, the XIR will work closely with Camber’s investment team to identify acquisition opportunities, conduct due diligence and join the company as CEO post-investment.

For the XIR, the program provides an opportunity to evaluate markets thoughtfully, leverage Camber’s sourcing infrastructure to speak with many of the companies in a sector, and find the best fit and opportunity for their skill set and interest.  It also allows the XIR to get to know the Camber team and how we work with portfolio companies, setting the CEO/Investor relationship up for future success.  It’s a unique opportunity to chart the next step in your career proactively versus hoping a recruiter brings a great role to you.

While Camber doesn’t have a preference or bias toward replacing CEOs upon investment, we’ve found that many bootstrapped founders/CEOs are looking to transition out of a full-time capacity as a part of the transaction with Camber.  The XIR program allows us to identify future CEOs upfront and to jointly find investment opportunities that align with the XIR's experience and interest.  Camber also values getting to know the future CEO during the due diligence process, and jointly defining the post-close operating plan allows us to hit the ground running on day one.

Based on where we’ve seen success in the past, we’ve identified the following characteristics of an ideal candidate for the XIR program:

Even post-investment close, <$10MM SaaS companies are small with limited resources.  A successful CEO needs to be hands-on and scrappy, excited to talk with customers, close deals, write blog posts, and learn the nuances of the product. This is for builders, not managers.

Experienced in product-led growth done well: 

PLG is core to Camber’s investment thesis and allows for predictable and capital-efficient growth.  The successful candidates will understand the PLG dynamics intimately based on hands-on experience at the VP- or C-level in product, product marketing, growth, or marketing at leading PLG companies during their formative growth ramps.

  We’re looking for people that bring a strong perspective to the table.  Coming into the program with a market thesis based on experience increases the odds of finding a successful investment.  Post-close, building conviction on where the market is headed and why and aligning the stakeholders on that vision is critical to building a big company. We’re looking for thought partners, not someone that simply executes what they are told.

 We’re looking for people eager to build and accomplish something we can all be proud of.  The XIR program probably isn’t right for serial CEOs or typical PE Operating Partners.  We expect that for many of our XIRs, this will be their first CEO role, but that they have demonstrated the ability to build and lead high-performing teams, create cultures of alignment and accountability, and drive successful outcomes at outstanding companies that we admire.

Camber’s XIR program typically lasts six months and results in successful placement as CEO in a new investment or taking a leadership role at an existing portfolio company.  While we do not require a full-time commitment to the XIR program, we do expect that the majority of your time will be spent dedicated to sourcing and evaluating opportunities.

If you think you’d be a good candidate, please reach out to talent@camber.io.  Due to the high volume of interest, we may not be able to respond immediately.  We typically have one or two XIRs at any given time and will be adding additional people on a rolling basis.


For more on what it’s like to work with Camber Partners, please visit our 

Introducing our Executive-in-Residence program

Camber's XIR Program

 – Beamer, a recognized leader in no-code product engagement tools, announced a growth equity investment from Camber Partners, a B2B SaaS investment firm focused on product-led-growth (PLG) software companies. Valued at over $20M, the investment reflects both firms' commitment to building a unified platform for Product teams across the globe. As part of the investment, Beamer announced Satya Ganni as its CEO.

Beamer, headquartered in Boulder, CO, has steadily emerged as a trusted platform for customers looking to build better products and improve user engagement. The company’s Changelog, NPS, and Roadmap products serve as intuitive tools that facilitate better communication and feedback between businesses and their end user base, ultimately helping to increase engagement and reduce churn.

Mariano Rodriguez Colombelli, Beamer’s CEO, shared his insights on the partnership:

"Our core mission at Beamer has been to help companies across the globe build better products. With Camber's investment and partnership, we see a strong opportunity to expand our offering and further enhance the value of our platform. We’re pleased to have Camber joining us through this next phase of growth."

San Francisco-based Camber Partners brings an extensive track record of investing in and nurturing product-led growth (PLG) software companies. The firm’s decision to invest in Beamer is rooted in a strategic rationale: Product teams (Product Management and Product Marketing) are the new Sales & Marketing for PLG software companies, and these growing functions need a robust toolkit that enables data-driven decision making and measurable ROI. Camber perceives Beamer's existing data layer, which facilitates advanced user segmentation, as an optimal starting point.

Scott Irwin, Founder and Managing Partner of Camber Partners, expanded on this:

"We've observed a compelling shift in the software landscape. Product managers are increasingly leaning on tools to make data-driven decisions and our investment in Beamer is grounded in this observation. Their platform's potential, particularly in user segmentation, aligns perfectly with our vision for a more integrated product management toolkit. We’re eager to partner closely with the team and Satya to embark on this opportunity together."

In connection with the partnership, seasoned SaaS Chief, Satya Ganni, will join as CEO of Beamer. Ganni's impressive lineage in leading PLG B2B SaaS firms to success, along with multiple exits, echoes Beamer’s aspirations for scaling new heights in the User Engagement domain.

"I'm genuinely excited to embark on this journey with Beamer, a platform that has consistently redefined the boundaries of product engagement. Joining as CEO offers a unique opportunity to not only continue the company's legacy but also to explore new avenues of growth and innovation. Collaborating with Camber, with their deep insights and expertise, I am confident that together, we will drive Beamer to new heights and further solidify its place as a cornerstone tool in the Product Management landscape," said Ganni.

This partnership emerges at a time when the role of product management is rapidly expanding. With businesses beyond the tech sector relying more on cloud-based applications, the need for tools like Beamer is more-evident than ever– a market expected to surpass $5.06B by 2030.


Founded by Mariano Rodriguez and Spencer Coon, Beamer is a no-code product engagement platform that includes changelog, notification center, NPS and roadmap. With customers like Freshworks, Hotjar, MongoDB, Unbounce, CloudKitchens, Linktree, and Zenefits, Beamer’s mission is to help companies all across the globe build better products.
Beamer is easy to install and requires no coding knowledge. Just plug in Beamer script and go. Great for all product managers and product marketing managers. To learn more, please visit https://www.getbeamer.com


Camber Partners is a San Francisco-based growth equity firm focused on product-led growth (PLG) software companies. Camber Partners provides software companies with flexible capital and dedicated go-to-market and data science resources to drive long-term sustainable growth. To do it, the Camber team brings to its portfolio companies deep operational expertise across sales, marketing, growth, and product development. For more information, please visit http://www.camber.io or follow us on LinkedIn.

Company names new CEO, taps additional funding for growth

Beamer Announces $20M Equity Investment from Camber Partners

, the leading sales tax compliance platform for ecommerce businesses, today announced it raised $20 million in a growth equity round. 

 (“Camber”), the growth equity firm focused on product-led growth (PLG) software companies, led the investment round. The investment will enable TaxCloud to continue providing exceptional service to its customers, while expanding its product offerings, marketing efforts, and sales operations, ultimately driving growth in the ecommerce sales and use tax market. 

As part of the investment, TaxCloud announced the appointment of Nate Gilmore as its CEO.

TaxCloud’s platform helps merchants calculate, collect, and file sales and use tax for transactions in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The platform is trusted by more than 4,000 ecommerce businesses, and is a recognized leader in customer service and support in the sales tax management space.

“TaxCloud is a great fit for our portfolio: it delivers a complete tax compliance product to ecommerce businesses. It’s non-optional: if you do business online, eventually you must pay sales tax,” said Scott Irwin, Managing Partner at Camber. “We’re excited to provide TaxCloud not only the capital but also the operational expertise to help the company build on the phenomenal business they have brought to market. Nate and I have worked together for more than five years in a similar business. He will be an exceptional go-to-market and operational addition to TaxCloud.”

Camber’s investment in TaxCloud marks its first in the ecommerce sales tax and use space. TaxCloud matches the firm’s thesis to invest in SaaS and PLG products in large, addressable markets with under-optimized go-to-market muscle that can benefit from Camber’s in-house tools and expertise.

On the announcement, Mr. Gilmore said: “I am thrilled to be joining TaxCloud’s team at this exciting time for the company. Camber’s dedication to growing industry-leading SaaS solutions is a perfect match for our mission of simplifying sales tax compliance for ecommerce businesses.”

Mr. Gilmore will draw on his experience leading high-growth software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses, in addition to coaching and investing in growth companies, to help TaxCloud achieve its mission. Mr. Gilmore was most recently Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of PandaDoc and previously VP Marketing at Shipwire (acquired by Ingram Micro, now a CEVA Logistics company).

TaxCloud is the right-sized tax solution for companies who need to be compliant across the states they sell in. The TaxCloud team and technology automagically calculate the right tax rates across 13,000+ different tax jurisdictions in the US, collect the right amount at the moment of transaction, and file the right amount of sales tax with 100% accuracy. The company also manages audits as they arise. TaxCloud has been partnering with merchants in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia for the past 15 years. TaxCloud: We eat sales tax for breakfast. To learn more, please visit: 

Camber Partners is a San Francisco-based growth equity firm focused on product-led growth (PLG) software companies. Camber Partners provides software companies with flexible capital and dedicated go-to-market and data science resources to drive long-term sustainable growth. To do it, the Camber team brings to its portfolio companies deep operational expertise across sales, marketing, growth, and product development. For more information, please visit 

Camber Partners leads investment round to accelerate TaxCloud’s growth; Seasoned SaaS leader and growth advisor Nate Gilmore appointed CEO

TaxCloud Raises $20M in Growth Equity Round

Camber Partners works with SaaS businesses where we see promising potential for growth that can be unlocked through exceptional operational collaboration. At this milestone, it is critical to use or expand on a management framework that helps to focus everyone on the same opportunities. We’ve worked with dozens of fast-growing companies and a common framework for setting goals across the company is crucial to help the company scale.

The best-performing companies we know (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Slack) use OKRs. 

 and is a framework for goal setting. OKRs were first used at 

 written by Venture Capitalist John Doerr.

The OKR framework focuses on aligning the company to higher level outcomes, not procedures, while also allowing teams to see how their work impacts the business. Doerr attributes the framework's success to five key 

 that can be realized by companies large and small: (FACTS) Focus, Alignment, Commitment, Tracking, and Stretching.

: At any given point in time, there are many things a company and individuals at that company can invest time and resources into. The OKR framework forces focus on the key outcomes that will move the company forward. Not everything that the team is working on will be represented.

 In order to narrow in on the few items the company needs to focus on, there must be alignment across teams. OKRs require support from multiple functions as well as each individual. Every team and individual should know what they need to achieve and how their work impacts the outcome the business is trying to reach.

: To achieve cross-functional alignment, teams need to agree on what the OKRs are. That means writing them down, being explicit about what success looks like, and agreeing to collaborate together to achieve them. This adds a level of transparency that helps everyone know if they are heading in the right direction. 

: A key component of OKRs is tracking progress against them after they are set. This requires agreement on the measurement of success or the impact, and what completion of items looks like. Often teams need to make assumptions to set OKRs and the work involves experimentation. As OKRs are tracked, teams can not only see how they are performing against goals but should also have open conversations about what assumptions need to be adjusted or what initiatives no longer make sense.

: OKRs are meant to focus on outcomes that drive company growth. The operational successes of the business that are known and expected are typically not set as an OKR. Similarly, a goal that could be set as an OKR one quarter might eventually become business as usual once the company has learned how to repeatedly scale that result. When a company starts using OKRs, they often don’t immediately set stretch goals. As the process of implementing OKRs evolves, the company decides where and how to stretch.

These are some of the key reasons companies have flocked to using OKRs and why Camber likes to introduce them to companies in its portfolio. Next we’ll talk a bit about what an OKR is. As mentioned before, 

 which means there are at least two documented components to setting these goals.

 are the goals the company is aligned to achieve. These are often described as the outcome we are trying to achieve or where we are going. The 

 are measurable metrics that show progress against the Objective. These are often described as milestones or ways to see if you are getting to the Objective. The 

 that OKRs were originally conceived in is: 

I will (Objective) as measured by (this set of Key Results). 

For the time period that an OKR is set, it should be clear whether or not those outcomes were met [

. And again, not all the tasks that are being completed will be represented in the OKRs.

In thinking about Key Results, the concept of KPIs often comes up. 

and help to track metrics over time. There are many things that can be tracked as a KPI to help the business understand the progress it is making. A KPI can also be a way to set Key Results as the measurable metric. However, focus is critical for setting KRs, whereas KPIs allow for broader tracking. And it is important to keep in mind that Key Results are not something that you do; they are the successful outcome of what you did that shows measurable progress toward the larger Objective.

At Camber, we like the OKR framework as it helps teams focus on the key things that can drive growth. Not only does it provide alignment for the company, it also provides alignment across investors, the CEO, and the leadership team. Clarity and transparency of what matters and how we’ve determined if we’ve achieved our goals help teams set expectations appropriately and execute toward the right objectives.

The conversations around what the team learns as they execute against OKRs is just as important as the setting and tracking of the OKRs themselves. Each company will identify a cadence to set OKRs as well as track and review initiatives at various levels. We like to use a quarterly OKR process to set goals because it strikes a good balance between adding processes while maintaining the nimbleness and adaptability that gives small companies an advantage over larger incumbents. We then have a twice-monthly OKR meeting to track progress, where each owner of a Key Result can report on progress made so far as well as what they have learned from those initiatives. Sharing learnings with the cross-functional leadership team helps accelerate the team towards completing their sharing objectives.

When working with portfolio companies, we like to take an evolutionary approach. In the initial quarters we like to keep it simple while the team learns and adapts to the new operating framework. As companies learn the process and get better at setting and measuring goals, we’ll begin to add additional considerations, such as the timing of estimated impact, to help build predictability into the business. It is not uncommon to iterate on the OKR process for 6-12 months as it takes a few quarters of setting OKRs and learning from the outcomes before a company settles into a long-term cadence.

Some companies that talk about their experiences with OKRs are:

Overview of our use of OKRs with Portfolio companies.

How Camber Leverages OKRs

As a B2B SaaS entrepreneur, your funding choices today are to go the venture capital route or bootstrap your business.

On the VC path, if you lose momentum towards unicorn status you can lose investor support and your capitalization structure may become a hindrance to achieving your goals.

As a bootstrapped founder, you may not have access to the capital, talent, and expertise needed to maximize the opportunity in front of you.

Empower entrepreneurs to achieve the potential of their SaaS business by providing flexible capital and exceptional operational collaboration to drive long-term sustainable growth.

In support of our mission, we’ve outlined the four Core Values that drive how we engage with founders, portfolio companies, and each other.

We believe in sitting on the same side of the table as our portfolio companies -- we win and lose together.

We believe in measuring ourselves by the results we achieve.

We believe in making decisions based on fact, not opinion.

We believe in measuring and validating the impact of our activities.

We believe data levels the playing field and helps the best ideas rise to the top.

We believe in the power of investing -- in ourselves, in our teams, and in our practice.

We believe in the cumulative power of small improvements to create dramatic changes.

We believe that everyone brings something valuable to the conversation.

We believe in giving honest and constructive feedback.

We believe small egos drive successful partnerships.

Mission & Core Values

VC or Bootstrap: What Other Options Are There?

During 20 years as a VC investor in SaaS startups, I saw the good and bad of the VC model. I came to believe another option was needed for entrepreneurs to successfully achieve the potential of their SaaS business.

As a B2B SaaS entrepreneur, your primary options are to raise venture capital or to bootstrap the growth of your company.

Venture Capital is a Law of Small Numbers

Raising a successful Series A feels like a big win which will set your company up for subsequent larger raises and to make a big impact. The belief is venture capital is reserved for only the “very best” companies so it feels like a no-brainer to accept. However, the follow-on implications are significant.The reality is you are expected to triple, triple, double, double, double (“T2D3”) your revenue from that point forward. Unicorns are the goal, and this is the path to building a unicorn in SaaS. That’s 7,100% growth. Truthfully, very few companies have the potential to achieve this. There are limitations outside their control like market sizing, the timing of adoption, or business model (notice I didn’t say talent or capital. That’s a given).  It’s a law of small numbers.

32,000 software startups raised their first institutional financing in the last eight years.  How many of these will become unicorns?  300?  500?

Once you fall off the T2D3 growth curve, your fundraising options become increasingly limited.  For most companies, this eventually results in cutting headcount to reach break-even. At the same time, your VC investors stop spending time focused on your business. His partners and LPs require him or her to make this decision, leaving you without a lot of help and few options.

You can try to sell the business but most won’t be able to.  It’s hard to sell a sub-$5m ARR SaaS company at a price that’s worth accepting.  Even though you are no longer on the fast path to unicorn status, you’ve built a solid growing business.  In fact, exceeding $3m+ in ARR puts you in the top 10% of all startups, so why doesn’t it feel like a win?

The alternative to VC is to self-fund your growth. Sometimes taken by choice, other times out of necessity but regardless, it’s very hard work. Your growth rate is typically closer to the growth of the overall market, which for SaaS is often around 20-30% in the long run. At the high end of this growth range, it will take 17 years to achieve the 7,100% growth your VC-backed competitors are shooting for.  This sounds about right when you look at MailChimp (20 years) and SurveyMonkey (20 years) as examples of successful boot-strapped unicorns.

That’s a long, hard road, marked by a continual shortage of capital and talent. The truth is most bootstrapping founders are building for an exit below $1b, which often comes in the form of a PE buyout.  This typically requires $15m ARR and positive EBITDA at a minimum. So your base case plan is to bootstrap for 8-10 years and then cash out fully or partially with a PE investment.

For most bootstrappers, the PE exit means being rolled up into a larger platform company owned by the PE firm.  This can be a good outcome but by definition, it’s no longer the company you started.  It’s part of a different larger company.  You have stock in the larger company, not your own.

Software markets are not winner-take-all or even winner-take-most markets. They typically produce multiple winners. Sometimes a dozen or more. The majority of these are acquisitions in the $100m-350m range, well below unicorn level, but certainly still an amazing accomplishment, and far more frequent. It’s no longer a law of small numbers.

The key is capital efficiency. If you raise a smaller amount of capital, you preserve the option to sell for $100m. By definition, raising a VC round takes this option off the table. To achieve scale with capital efficiency, you need lots of time (for example, Mailchimp) and excellent execution (for Atlassian).

We started Camber Partners to provide excellent execution to SaaS entrepreneurs who have built great companies that are no longer on the VC fundraising path or who have chosen to bootstrap. Our goal is to shorten the time to a compelling exit and dramatically increase the odds of getting there.

Our operating team has seen Silicon Valley-level scale and knows firsthand what operating excellence looks like.  We partner with founders to fill leadership and technology gaps in their businesses for a period of time until the company is able to attract and can afford to hire its own management team. In our experience, this de-risks the path to scale, avoids mistakes common amongst first-time founders, and increases capital efficiency.

Capital efficiency underlies everything we do at Camber. In fact, we focus on Product Led Growth (PLG) SaaS companies because of their exceptional capital efficiency.  For example, Pipedrive burned only $12m on a growth path from $1m to $100m ARR during just seven years.  The PLG aspects of that business plus excellent execution produced a unicorn. Massive amounts of capital weren’t required.We focus on providing execution excellence within data science and the go-to-market functions of marketing, sales and success. Gemini, our proprietary data platform, is deployed into the companies we invest in and used for channel-based attribution, product engagement analytics, and predictive customer health scoring. This powers data-driven decision making and drives focus.  Both of which are friendly to capital efficiency.  Our Team is comprised of leaders and individual contributors across GTM functions who bring best practices and proven playbooks into your company alongside your current team.

Importantly, we are investing to scale your company, not to consolidate your company into a mashup of several other related (or not) companies. We are seeking the same outcome you are, to see your company achieve its potential. This could be measured in terms of market awareness or exit value.

Lastly, we recognize the path from startup to scale can be long and challenging.  We meet founders who, for a wide range of reasons, want to step out of day-to-day leadership roles. We see this as natural and will never seek to punish a founder for stepping down or even walking away.  We don’t ask founders to re-vest. Unlike a strategic acquirer, we don’t link valuation to complicated earn-outs and we don’t tie your hands for years into the future. Our investments are almost always a combination of secondary to current shareholders and primary for future growth.

We created Camber Partners to provide an alternative path forward with the mission of helping entrepreneurs to achieve the potential of their SaaS business. If you think another option is a fit for you, we look forward to learning about your business.

The investment process can take on many forms.  Some founders we’ve known for years prior to writing a check and others we meet within weeks of making a decision.  We share the letter below with all founders early in the process so they can better understand us and how we approach our partnership with portfolio companies.

In an ideal world, we’d have months to spend getting to know the teams at the companies in which we are looking to invest.  Getting to know them as people, understanding strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and aspirations.  The inverse is true as well, founders want to know what it’s like to sell a major stake of their company to Camber.  And if they are continuing on with the company, what’s it like to work side by side with us. Finally, and usually most importantly, what will it be like for the teams they have hired, trained and built their company’s culture alongside.  Since the M&A process is rarely ideal, we’ve written this memo to give you a sense of who we are and how we operate to help determine whether there is a cultural fit in which we can work collaboratively to achieve outsized results.  In our experience, the best results come from teams with clear alignment and a strong culture, and therefore we ask that if after reading this, you don’t genuinely believe that we’re a mutual fit, you let us know so we can all avoid the pain of a suboptimal partnership.

At Camber, we’ve all worked in the early-stage technology world our entire careers.  As investors, founders, employees, and executives, we’ve seen the start-up journey from just about every angle.  Over 20+ years and dozens of companies, we’ve had some great success and some great failures and learned from them all along the way.  We’ve learned what we’re good at, what we’re bad at and, most importantly, what we’re passionate about: 

We’re not experts in finding product-market fit.  We’re not suited to build products in nascent markets.  We’re not built to endure everything it takes to take a business from $100K to $3MM in ARR.  We admire you for already accomplishing those feats.

We get excited about go-to-market strategy and execution for product-led growth companies and the journey from $5MM to $20MM.  We take a hands-on approach building demand generation engines, creating and executing on SEO strategies, systematically experimenting with new channels, ongoing CRO and onboarding optimization, layering in and optimizing inbound sales motions, building outbound sales organizations, implementing account health scoring, turning monthly customers into annual and building customer success teams.  At the heart of all of this is our data pipeline and rev ops engine, Gemini, which provides the foundation for unlocking the data within your funnel, product and customer base and allow us to optimize and scale the business.

None of this works without a well-loved product as the foundation.  We won’t invest if the core product DNA doesn’t intend to move forward with the company, for at least a meaningful time period.  Sometimes this is a product-centric founder who is eager to shed the management burden and go back to the part of the job they truly love.  Sometimes this is a CTO with deep product and domain expertise.  Sometimes this is an up-and-coming product manager ready to take the next step.

Our goal with each company we work with is to invest in a Culture of Learning

While we all have different experiences and expertise, we recognize that none of us have the right answer every time. Each market and product is unique.  What worked in company X will not always work for company Y.  What worked for company X in year 2 will not necessarily work in Year 4.  We strive to center our operating philosophy around Data & Experimentation.

We don’t claim to always have the right answer, but we’ve assembled the tools and processes to reliably find it. If we’ve done our job correctly, this methodology empowers teams to be creative, pushes decision-making to the edges of the company and enables high-potential employees to flourish.  Teams and individuals can try anything they want, limited only by time, budget, and the requirement to test and measure the results.  At earlier stages and lower volumes this testing isn’t perfect, but it begins to build muscle memory and lays the foundation for the compounding effects as the company and customer volumes ramp.

We take a bespoke approach to building leadership teams at each company.  While we’ll look to immediately fill GTM skill gaps with Camber partners and resources, we’ll take a thoughtful approach on how to build out the broader leadership team with internal and external resources over time to ensure the company’s ability to achieve its potential.   We’ll count on your input in this process and be transparent in our thinking.

At the end of the day, our goal is to maximize the value of each company we invest in and deliver outstanding returns to our investors and to the other company shareholders.  Our hope is that you’ll maintain an equity stake in the business moving forward and that we can collaboratively drive an equal return from your remaining shares as you received in the initial transaction.  We’ve found that the most effective path to creating this value is to enhance your company’s culture and team with our capabilities and process.

If our approach resonates with you, we look forward to continuing the conversation.  If not, we wish you the best of luck in finding a financial and operational partner that aligns with your vision.

What's it like working with Camber Partners?

Partnering with Us

It’s hard to call the data transformation over the last fifteen years within companies of all shapes and sizes anything but meteoric. Data Scientists and Data Engineers have gone from job titles most had never heard of to one of the most in-demand jobs in the market because companies have recognized the importance data can play in improving the bottom line for their businesses. In fact, in 2017, the Economist ran a cover titled “

” in which they described “Data are to this century what oil was to the last one: a driver of growth and change.” In 2020, the Economist went even further by rebuking their previous position by stating that oil isn’t a sufficient analogy for data. Instead, they suggest that 

 because “it will be everywhere and underlie everything” and that harnessing its potential for businesses will require having the necessary infrastructure in place to collect, transform and ultimately deliver it to where it can be best utilized.

Not surprisingly then, technology companies have invested in data at extremely high rates. However, while data has become ubiquitous to the point where it might seem easy, the supermajority of companies utilizing data have done so in a surprisingly immature fashion. This has led to a consistently high rate of data initiatives failing to deliver ROI according to multiple studies conducted by Gartner research between 2016 and 2020.

The reasons for these failures are too numerous to fully enumerate here, but the two most prevalent ones are worth discussing. These are a lack of data expertise - particularly at the leadership level within companies but also with cross-functional collaborators that don’t know how to operate effectively in a data-driven environment - and an insufficient or underdeveloped data environment - this across the entire data stack, infrastructure and lifecycle as so many tend to adopt overly simplified solutions with surprisingly large fundamental value gaps. Without these two key ingredients, the likelihood of data being successfully operationalized within an organization is low. And despite there being a number of highly-successful data-driven companies to serve as case studies, the majority of companies ignore those learnings because the truth is that data may be easy, but good data is hard and the investment can be daunting. Like the sunshine analogy mentioned above, data is everywhere these days, and so it can be easy to conflate its presence with the effective harnessing of it for value creation in a business.

The Camber team has been involved in numerous companies over the last decade that have successfully operationalized data to improve the execution and ultimately the outcomes of those companies. We have seen firsthand just how powerful data can be, when done well, for the accelerated growth and improved retention of B2B technology/SaaS companies. We want to bring that competitive advantage to the companies in our portfolio. To that end, Camber is making an ongoing investment into building out and maintaining a data platform for our portfolio companies, called Gemini. Many growing B2B technology companies with >$20MM ARR are already starting to implement these kinds of platforms themselves. In doing so they see accelerated growth and greater likelihood of achieving successful outcomes from the insights they are able to derive from their data. Smaller companies are often unable to compete and can suffer lost ground against larger competition as a result. With Gemini, Camber is able to enable data-driven, cross-functional execution at smaller companies in our portfolio, ultimately helping them grow faster and more predictably in ways they would not be able to by themselves until they were significantly larger to resource the efforts themselves.

Gemini is, however, just the beginning of the data journey for companies in Camber’s portfolio. It serves as the foundational platform on which to build data-driven organizations. In our collaboration with our companies, we also bring our learnings on how to operationalize data effectively to realize its potential. We work closely with leaders in our companies to ensure that data is driving decision making and execution. When this is successful, the data is not just reporting the news, it’s helping the company make it. Too many companies conflate data with reporting. You don’t drive your car with a historical report of your speeds on previous trips extrapolated out into a forecast for your next trip, you use the real-time speedometer readout. And yet, this is exactly how most data is operationalized inside a company. With the Gemini platform and the data resources and expertise that Camber brings to its collaboration, we help our portfolio companies go beyond the basics and build data-driven organizations that can harness data as a competitive growth advantage without the resourcing and investment limitations that all small companies face.

Unlocking competitive advantage with Gemini.

Gemini & the Opportunities of Data

Camber Partners Closes $100 Million Fund I Focused on Product-led Growth Software Companies

 (“Camber”) announced today the closing of Camber Partners Fund I, LP with $100 million of committed capital from a broad group of institutional investors. The oversubscribed fund closed at its hard cap and has closed investments in Scout and SE Ranking.

Camber provides growing SaaS companies with flexible capital and deep operational expertise in the fields of marketing, sales, success, and data science.  Camber’s investing and operating team have prior experience with notable product-led growth (PLG) software companies including Dropbox, Pipedrive, When I Work, Datadog, and SolarWinds. Camber makes control investments and significant minority investments in companies with $3 million to $10 million in annual recurring revenue.

“We are pleased to have raised our first institutional fund in a short period of time, especially given the uncertainty caused by the pandemic,” said Scott Irwin, Founder of Camber.  “The support of well-respected investors is testament to the quality of the team we have assembled.”

Fund I includes a diversified investor base of leading endowments and foundations, fund of funds, asset management firms, and family offices. Goodwin Proctor LLP provided legal counsel for Camber.

Camber Partners is a San Francisco-based growth equity firm focused on product-led growth (PLG) software companies. Camber Partners provides software companies with flexible capital and dedicated go-to-market and data science resources to drive long-term sustainable growth. For more information, please visit 