Drury: Xero IPO'd first before raising from hedge funds and VCs
Rod Drury · 20VC: Xero's Rod Drury on IPO on Day 1 To Hedge Fund to VC & Doing Startups Backward · May 20, 2016 · at 16:03
Rod Drury is the founder and CEO of Xero. He explains Xero's unconventional backwards fundraising path compared to typical venture-backed startups.
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“We did our IPO first. Then we brought in the hedge funds, who, because of the compression in the US market with BC's doing most of the big deals, the private, the hedge fund guys, sorry, had to go out and find global deals. And then it's only really recently that we've actually brought, ah, property season, and it's been great to have the support of Accel and endorsement from them.”
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More from Rod Drury
Drury: Xero added more global small businesses than Intuit did last year
“We actually added more small business, small businesses globally to our brand, And Intuit added to their brand last year, and they spent 1.2 billion to do it”
Drury: Accounting is the only small business app with a built-in channel
“So what's interesting about accounting software in the small business space is it's the only application with an actual channel.”
Drury: Xero raised $15M at a $55M valuation in day-one IPO
“So we raised fifteen million dollars at a fifty-five million dollar valuation, which some people thought, ah, was crazy, but, you know, now, even in this depressed, crazy market time, you know, in a short time, ah, our company's worth over two billion dollars.”
Drury: Xero's major global rivals Sage, MYOB, and Intuit lack founder leadership
“We compete with, you know, three, well, two, two mainly really large companies, but three companies around the world, Sage in the UK, NYB in this part of the world, and Intuit in the US, and none of those are founder-led companies, and there's very few founder…”