The SaaS business model is becoming an increasingly important part of the New England technology landscape. It makes a lot of sense that New England technology companies would lean towards the Software as a Service model, since this area has historically been a strong enterprise software innovation center and SaaS is the new way to sell enterprise software. I’m starting a list of some of the SaaS companies HQ’d in New England, with a particular emphasis on ones serving the small and medium businesses market.
I’m sure I’ve left off quite a few - please email me or post comments below so I can try to get a better running list!!
acquia - Acquia is a commercial open source software company providing products, services, and technical support for the open source Drupal social publishing system. They should soon be releasing “Drupal Gardens,” a software-as-a-service version of Drupal that speeds the design and deployment of Drupal social publishing sites for new, non-technical users including small business owners and web designers. The company is funded by Northbridge and Sigma.
Cloudswitch - Some amazing technologists and executives have come together to help enterprises fully capture the power of cloud computing. (Disclaimer, my former employer Atlas Venture is an investor.) The exact business model hasn’t yet been publicly announced but it has the potential to be big…
Constant Contact - THE email marketing company, CTCT is one of the New England’s better known public software companies. CTCT increased revenues in Q1 2009 to $28.1 million, up 55% from Q1 the year before. Gail Goodman, the CEO, has been a local leader in promoting software innovation by offering her experiences and advice to a number of the up-and-coming younger companies.
Carbonite - Seriel entrepreneur David Friend’s online backup company launched in 2006 and has now backed up over 2.5 billion files. The company is a marketing machine. Carbonite is based in Boston and was originally backed by local angel group CommonAngels.
Gomez - A Lexington based company focused on providing SaaS solutions that help companies develop, manage and test their web sites before and after deployment. Customers include Best Buy, Starwood and Wacovia.
Grasshopper - The company formerly known as GotVMail has served over 70,000 SMB customers, providing voice and voicemail services - all without having raised venture capital. People in Boston need to talk about this company more. Read the rest of this entry »