What Does it Mean to Be “Venture Scale”?

What does it mean for a business to be venture scale? I’ve heard this phrase thrown around for close to a decade now, and I feel like it means so many different things depending on who you ask. Here’s some things it means to some people (heuristics, if you will…): $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue $1B in Sales (for non-recurring revenue businesses) >100x return potential (from seed stage) “Capital efficient compounders” (this is one of my favorites) $1B+ Enterprise Value (Unicorns!) $10B+ Enterprise Value (Decacorns!) I define venture scale more fundamentally (curse you, CFA!). Specifically, a venture scale company is one that has the potential to consistently generate high return on invested capital (“ROIC”). Of course, this easily describes the best SaaS businesses funded by venture investors for close to two decades now. High margin, sticky revenue, with limited upfront capital to get started and most venture dollars going in to scale product and sales. It’s why SaaS is the maybe th

What does it mean for a business to be venture scale? I’ve heard this phrase thrown around for close to a decade now, and I feel like it means so many different things depending on who you ask. Here’s some things it means to some people (heuristics, if you will…): $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue $1B in Sales (for non-recurring revenue businesses) >100x return potential (from seed stage) “Capital efficient compounders” (this is one of my favorites) $1B+ Enterprise Value (Unicorns!) $10B+ Enterprise Value (Decacorns!) I define venture scale more fundamentally (curse you, CFA!). Specifically, a