Stripe Inc. has recently launched Chargeback Protection, an insurance for chargebacks resulting from fraudulent transactions. At the end of each quarter, many credit card companies require that businesses pay a chargeback for losses from fraudulent transactions, and Chargeback Protection will seek to shield merchants from the burden of this repayment by covering the payback to credit card companies if fraudulent activity occurs. The insurance works by charging 0.4% of each transaction and means merchants will not have to submit claims against fraud or negotiate down fees. Stripe’s confidence in Radar, the infrastructure supporting the company’s ability to detect and prevent fraudulent charges, is expected to cater minimal risk of financial burden to the payments processing giant.
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In SaaS and cybersecurity news, CrowdStrike, a leading cloud-native endpoint protection platform, underwent its public debut on the Nasdaq. The cloud company (SYM: CRWD) skyrocketed as high as 97% on its first day. CrowdStrike joins the ranks of the growing group of major software IPOs in 2019—including Uber, Lyft, Zoom and PagerDuty—and precedes Slack’s upcoming listing.
The world of digital marketing this week saw Google release functionality to set conversion actions at the campaign level. Until this release, conversion actions could only be applied at the account level, which led to marketers creating multiple accounts to optimize different campaigns and apply budgets to achieve distinct conversion goals. This update will make it exponentially more accessible for marketers to measure, track and optimize at the campaign level. Campaign-level conversion actions are available for display and search campaigns, while video campaign support will be released later in the year.
This week FE is pleased to share details on an incredibly well-established 17 Year-Old B2B Mac Web Software and Marketplace business. Boasting robust fundamentals including over $800,000 in gross revenues generated in the LTM and growing margins, this business has stood the test of time to become a household name in the Mac development space. Further, the business features a highly active marketplace leveraging its developer community to drive innovation and customer lifetime value, in a similar fashion to marketplaces fostered by Salesforce, Shopify, Atlassian, etc. With a 17 year track record, a highly engaged user base and market leading technology, this business is not one to miss. Please follow the link above to request more information.
In events news, the FE team had a great time sponsoring SaaStock East Coast in New York and attending Hypergrowth 2019 in London! Founder Thomas Smale also greatly enjoyed judging the startup competition at Inflection Conference. Next week, Thomas is looking forward to attending Shopify Unite, where he will be meeting with several e-commerce entrepreneurs. Make sure to reach out and set up a meeting if you will be in the Toronto area from June 18-20!
Bonus feature: Want to know what a successful SaaS startup looks like in 2019? SaaS Mag’s interview with Randy Rayess and Pratham Mittal, founders of Outgrow, is now live on the blog. Head over to SaaSMag.com to read about how the two first-time founders built an idea from a feature for VenturePact into a successful SaaS company right out of college!
Continue reading below for more on Stripe’s Chargeback Protection, CrowdStrike’s market debut and Google’s launch of campaign-level conversion actions.
Listings
New
Software – 17 Y/O B2V Mac Web Software & Marketplace – $67K gross/mo
- Robust business fundamentals with over $800,000 in gross revenues generated in the LTM and year-over-year improvement in margins.
- Quality products have attracted a loyal following as evidenced by the c.$286,000 in monthly sales generated by the launch of its updated web design software alone.
- Among the market leaders in lucrative and growing niche.
- Extensive operational track record spanning c.17 years.
Yearly net profit: $575,000
Asking price: $1,906,000
Affiliate/Lead Generation – Pest Control Resource – $37K gross/mo
- Impressive monthly revenue growth demonstrated by a c.16% CMGR over the LTM.
- Rankings for over 170,000 keywords, about a quarter of which are ranked on Google’s first page.
- Remarkable traffic profile with over 1.5 million unique users and over 1.7 million sessions in the LTM.
- Vast library of high-quality content with an average word count of c.2,300.
- Simple business operations requiring minimal owner involvement.
Yearly net profit: $437,000
Asking price: $1,370,000
E-Commerce – 20,000 Tier Amazon Merch – $5.3K gross/mo
- Profitable Amazon Merch business on the 20,000 Pro Tier.
- Strong YoY revenue growth of c.83% in the LTM.
- Over 3,400 unique product designs facilitating diversified product sales.
- Lean and scalable cost structure driving high net margins over the LTM.
Yearly net profit: $48,400
Asking price: $135,000
Affiliate – Hardware & Power Tools Review Blog – $1.3K gross/mo
- Firmly positioned in the lucrative hardware & power tools niche.
- Impressive revenue CMGR of c.33% over the last 12 months.
- Strong SEO foundation with c.2,700 long-form posts driving rankings for c.16,500 keywords.
- Lean and scalable cost structure driving high net margin in the LTM.
Yearly net profit: $14,800
Asking price: $46,000
Sold
SaaS – B2B Project Management Suite – $2.1K MRR
In the News…
Stripe Inc. Unveils Chargeback Protection Insurance Service
Payment processing giant Stripe Inc. launched Chargeback Protection, a new feature for merchants utilizing the service.
A chargeback occurs when credit card providers demand retailers to satisfy losses due to undisputed and fraudulent transactions. Chargebacks are exorbitantly costly for businesses that accept credit card payments. This is where Stripe’s new service steps in. Chargeback Protection is Stripe’s insurance for business users that use their payment services, should a chargeback request occur from credit card companies. Stripe customers will be reimbursed without having to show evidence. Smaller businesses will be protected by this new service by helping with the smoothness of cash flow by a removal of the unpredictable nature or disputes. Although customers are reimbursed automatically, there is a 0.4% fee per transaction for the insurance on top of existing fees. The insurance comes from Stripe’s trust in their machine learning-based fraud detection Radar. Strip claims that Radar is able to prevent fraud and henceforth reduce chargebacks- which is why the company offers the insurance no evidence requirement.
The announcement comes as a precursor to the company going public; there have been whispering of a potential initial public offering. Stripe has raised $345 million based on their $22 billion valuation as of January and is in a prime position for its public debut, although there are no official plans.
CrowdStrike Opens its First Day of Trading
CrowdStrike officially made their debut on the NASDAQ under ticker symbol “CRWD”. As some of the most high profile IPOs have failed to deliver to expectations, CrowdStrike has Wall Street excited.
CloudStrike’s $34 IPO is well above the expected range of $28-30 after ralling more than 70% during its debut, ending at $58 per share. The cloud based company’s sales continue to climb as its losses continue to drop.
CloudStrike follows many other tech companies who made their debut recent news such as Zoom, Lyft, Uber, and Pinterest.
Google Marketing Live Releases Conversion Actions on Campaign Level
The Google Marketing Live announcement from last month about the implementation of the ability to set conversion actions on a campaign level have arrived.
Prior to the update users would create multiple accounts to achieve separate conversion goals. The update substantially simplifies marketers organizational issues. There is now a Conversion Action Sets tab that allows marketers to capture different conversion types under the Tool bar.
This tool is useful for marketers who have “campaigns with separate marketing budgets targeted at different actions” and when “campaigns in the same conversion scope either in the same account with or part of the same manager account when using cross-account conversion tracking”, according to Google.
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