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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

#101

Post by csomar »

monkeydust wrote: post #23

As someone on the product side I am getting more bullish each day on low-code tooling as it gets increasingly hard to source and retain engineering talent. Whist it might comes with downsides and limitations I think the positives in terms of time-to-market and cost outweigh these on balance for many types of needs (not all for sure). Congrats.

It's the equivalent of Microsoft Access but on the cloud. Each has its pros and cons. (vendor lock-in, cloud integrations, code customization, etc..)

I don't think there is any novelty here except for it being on the cloud. I also don't think this a no-code platform.

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#102

Post by barking_biscuit »

dvdhsu wrote: post #2

Hi 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…

Wait, how new is the new free plan? A co-worker of mine linked me this recently saying it might be good for some internal tooling (which I totally agree!) and I wanted to hack around with it in anger on my own first before being comfortable making any sort of pitch internally for it but when I checked the free plan (at the time) it put me off. But now it looks like quite a bit more friendly...

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#103

Post by uptownfunk »

45M at 3.2B valuation? Who's drinking that koolaid?

EDIT FTFA >>>The funding, which Retool has described to me as a Series C2, is coming from Sequoia Capital, Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison, GitHub’s former CEO Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, Daniel Gross and Caryn Marooney, the former VP of Comms at Facebook who is now a partner at Coatue. All are previous investors in the company. The round comes on the heels of the company raising a more modest $20 million Series C in December 2021 (which valued it at $1.85 billion).

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#104

Post by aliasxneo »

barking_biscuit wrote: post #102
dvdhsu wrote: post #2

Hi 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…

Wait, how new is the new free plan? A co-worker of mine linked me this recently saying it might be good for some internal tooling (which I totally agree!) and I wanted to hack around with it in anger on my own first before being comfortable making any sort of pitch internally for it but when I checked the free plan (at the time) it put me off. But now it looks like quite a bit more friendly...

Must be pretty new. I used it earlier this year and was also turned off by the free plan. It used to be for one admin and you could only look at it through the editor view.

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#105

Post by pxue »

dvdhsu wrote: post #2

Hi 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…

Hey David, late last year my cofounder convinced me to try out Retool so we can rapidly spin up a prototype for a potential customer.

We spun up the prototype in a couple of weeks without much hassle. It was a huge success. so much so that the customer who we created the prototype for decided to invest 6 figures into our business.

it's 6 months later, albeit we've outgrown the prototype, I've learnt valuable lesson in prototyping fast, like as fast as you can and get it out the door.

looking forward in seeing what retool can become next. more stability, or ability to write/perform some automated testing would be amazing.

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#106

Post by madrox »

dvdhsu wrote: post #2

Hi 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…

Wanted to say that I love your product. I've only started using it in the last two months, but it's the best backoffice tool I've had the pleasure to work with. You guys are really onto something. I wish you all the success.

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#107

Post by AdamProut »

dvdhsu wrote: post #9
artemonster wrote: post #8

I 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…

Couldn't a $ 3 billion valuation cut both ways as far as recruiting is concerned? If the companies current ARR is extremely disconnected from the valuation (say the valuation is 100x ARR), then I would think most experience prospective employees would be running for the hills based on what is going on in public markets right now. Lots of stories going around of employees working many years and left with no upside for those years of work after joining a company post a big raise like this. The upside was baked in before they joined.

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#108

Post by antonybello »

barking_biscuit wrote: post #102
dvdhsu wrote: post #2

Hi 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…

Wait, how new is the new free plan? A co-worker of mine linked me this recently saying it might be good for some internal tooling (which I totally agree!) and I wanted to hack around with it in anger on my own first before being comfortable making any sort of pitch internally for it but when I checked the free plan (at the time) it put me off. But now it looks like quite a bit more friendly...

Hi! It’s hot off the press— we just launched it today!

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#109

Post by hinkley »

uptownfunk wrote: post #103

45M at 3.2B valuation? Who's drinking that koolaid? EDIT FTFA >>>The funding, which Retool has described to me as a Series C2, is coming from Sequoia Capital, Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison, GitHub’s former CEO Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, Daniel Gross and Caryn Marooney, the former VP of Comms at Facebook who is now a partner at Coatue. All are previous investors in the company. The round comes on the heels…

1.4% of shares. As I said in another thread, where the valuation was based on 4.7%, it’s one thing to do an evaluation on a 10% sale. I think we should be couching anything under N% with a pound of salt, and looking askance at anything under 2N%.

I don’t know what N should be. People seem to generally accept its < 10, possibly < 5. But at N=1 it’s definitely too small of a sample size.

Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation

#110

Post by hinkley »

akomtu wrote: post #70
artemonster wrote: post #8

I dont understand how an apparently billion dollar company still requires to raise 45 million. Can someone ELI5 the economics of this?

Well, this headline is a great summary of what these valuations mean: you are worth 3.2 billion on paper, but have only 0.05 billion. That's a 70x magnifying glass for your wealth. To be a millionaire on paper, register a corp, ask a friend to invest 15k for 3% of the company, and you're officially worth a million. You'll still need a second job, though - rent isn't free.

Based on the founder comment they now have north of $115 million, which is still 30x.
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