I dont understand how an apparently billion dollar company still requires to raise 45 million. Can someone ELI5 the economics of this?
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Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
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Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#12Congrats on the round! I've always been interested in Retool, but have a baseline requirement of any tool syncing back to Git. Is there a reason you don't allow that in the SaaS version?
We probably should support that. What's happened is we initially built the feature for an on-prem customer and never bother supporting that for the cloud version (since anybody who wanted it would just use the on-prem version). Let me follow up with the team now and see how much work it would be to bring it to cloud. Thank you for the feedback!
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#13Congrats on the round! I've always been interested in Retool, but have a baseline requirement of any tool syncing back to Git. Is there a reason you don't allow that in the SaaS version?
We probably should support that. What's happened is we initially built the feature for an on-prem customer and never bother supporting that for the cloud version (since anybody who wanted it would just use the on-prem version). Let me follow up with the team now and see how much work it would be to bring it to cloud. Thank you for the feedback!
Yeah, understandable! Even little startups want Git too though. :)
If you do end up implementing it, I'd love a heads up: me@morgante.net
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#14I dont understand how an apparently billion dollar company still requires to raise 45 million. Can someone ELI5 the economics of this?
We actually didn't need the money (we're cashflow-positive). In fact, we haven't touched the money from our Series B (in 2020) nor our Series C (in 2021). But raising money is helpful because a) it gets prospective customers interested in the product (oh, X company raised, let me check out what their product does), b) it gets prospective employees interested, c) it allows people externally to see that the company is…
Wouldn't saying "we're actually profitable" be better? a) you still get into news (though for a different reason), b) gives prospective employees sense of stability, c) being profitable seems like good progress in my book, and d) no dilution for existing employees, not even a little.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#15Hi all, founder @ Retool here. We've made a lot of progress over the past few years, but we first started on HN, and certainly wouldn't be here without all of you! For example, here's when we launched: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14515494 . Hilariously, we described Retool as "Excel with higher order primitives", and people understood it! (Only on HN!) After that, we spent around a year polishing the product…
Founder of DronaHQ here - a semi bootstrapped retool alternative with hundreds of customers. As someone playing along side in this huge market - this is awesome news to hear and congrats to the retool team.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#16Hi all, founder @ Retool here. We've made a lot of progress over the past few years, but we first started on HN, and certainly wouldn't be here without all of you! For example, here's when we launched: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14515494 . Hilariously, we described Retool as "Excel with higher order primitives", and people understood it! (Only on HN!) After that, we spent around a year polishing the product…
Congrats. You guys are actually doing a 'holy grail' type thing and having some success, that's very cool. I don't think it's about 'what' these days, ideas are easy, but always in the 'how' i.e. how it's executed. Very impressive, well done.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#17I dont understand how an apparently billion dollar company still requires to raise 45 million. Can someone ELI5 the economics of this?
We actually didn't need the money (we're cashflow-positive). In fact, we haven't touched the money from our Series B (in 2020) nor our Series C (in 2021). But raising money is helpful because a) it gets prospective customers interested in the product (oh, X company raised, let me check out what their product does), b) it gets prospective employees interested, c) it allows people externally to see that the company is…
> TBH, fundraising is kind of like charades: it's a way to signal you are doing well, without telling people your private company metrics.
I hate that this is the answer.
Edit, for clarification. I don't hate that this is Retool's answer, I hate that this is how the world actually works.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#18I dont understand how an apparently billion dollar company still requires to raise 45 million. Can someone ELI5 the economics of this?
It's a 'billion dollar valuation'. That can mean a range of things.
In this case, small by rapidly growing.
In the case of a thin margin retailer, cash constraints, working capital etc. imply need for funding.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#19I dont understand how an apparently billion dollar company still requires to raise 45 million. Can someone ELI5 the economics of this?
We actually didn't need the money (we're cashflow-positive). In fact, we haven't touched the money from our Series B (in 2020) nor our Series C (in 2021). But raising money is helpful because a) it gets prospective customers interested in the product (oh, X company raised, let me check out what their product does), b) it gets prospective employees interested, c) it allows people externally to see that the company is…
With names like the Stripe founders and the GitHub founder on the list, perhaps fundraising is also a way to get those well-connected people's skin in the game? They might be good routes to new customers or other connections good for growing the business.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#20Congrats on the round! Love the product.
I think retool is a great framework to build internal apps. Customers always wonder of what they can build with a framework. I wonder what were strategies that you used to solve this problem.