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and led the round.

The investment comes just seven months after OneTrust raised an also massive $200 million Series A at a $1.3 billion valuation. It brought the company鈥檚 to $410 million since its 2016 inception. (Insight Partners led that round as well.)

I hopped on the phone with OneTrust chairman , who said the company has been seeing explosive growth. By explosive we mean its headcount and customers surged from 600 and 2,000, respectively, in February 2019 to 1,500 employees and 5,000 customers today (including half the 500).

While he declined to provide growth metrics for 2019, the Atlanta Business Chronicle that OneTrust had seen a staggering 22,000 percent revenue growth from 2016 to 2018.

There鈥檚 no doubt that much of that growth is related to the fact that it helps organizations comply with global regulations like General Data Protection Regulation and now in California, the that went into effect on Jan. 1.

鈥淐ertainly, the concern for privacy is driving our business,鈥� Dabbiere told me. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing the transition from companies being fearful or scared of compliance issues to every CEO wanting to get closer to their customer.

鈥淭he challenge they have is wanting to get a lot more data about customers so they can serve them better,鈥� he continued. 鈥淏ut every CEO is also scared of ending up on the front of because someone on their team overreached.鈥�

Customers include , Akamai, , and .

So much, so soon

I was curious why OneTrust, if it was seeing such remarkable growth, felt the need to raise its Series B round so soon after its Series A financing. According to Dabbiere,聽the majority of the funds from OneTrust’s Series A are still available. But more capital gives the company “dry powder” to go after what it sees as “significant opportunities” for growth.

“We want to move fast on any organic and inorganic growth opportunities we may see in the market,” he told SA国际传媒 News.

Dabbiere said the doubling of the company’s valuation is indicative of OneTrust’s recent success.

鈥淲hen a VC invests in a company, they have certain growth expectations built into the number they give you,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n the last seven months, our valuation went from $1.3 billion to $2.7 billion. That tells you that we knocked it out of the park even relative to some lofty expectations. We had a really fantastic back half of the year.鈥�

Standing out in a crowded market

While there鈥檚 a slew of companies focused on the data privacy space, as our own Gene Teare reported yesterday, OneTrust does appear to have a strong foothold in the market. (In December I covered a new entrant to the market, Austin-based )

But despite all the competition, OneTrust stands out, according to a recent analysis of the privacy market by research giant .

In that report, IDC said: 鈥淥neTrust continues to dominate the privacy management market through exponential growth, organic growth as well as acquisitions. 鈥� They are growing horizontally into the governance, risk, and compliance space as well.鈥�

Indeed, OneTrust has over its lifetime, and plans to continue buying more with its new capital, according to Dabbiere. This is a strategy that the company believes will make its offerings even more valuable to customers.

Dabbiere believes that part of what sets OneTrust apart from its competition is that it continues to develop new modules that are important to customers.

鈥淎s our existing 5,000 customers continue to buy more and more modules from us, we expect our growth to only continue,鈥� Dabbiere told me. 鈥淚n a fairly short amount of time, we have made the transition from a handful of products to a fully integrated platform with a broad suite of products that responds to the trust and risk needs of our customers.鈥�

Investor POV

, managing director at Insight Partners, which led the deal, said the OneTrust team has exemplified the saying: 鈥淪kate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.鈥�

鈥� and team founded the business at such an opportune time, recognizing the looming privacy regulations globally,鈥� he wrote via email. 鈥淲hen GDPR went into effect in May 2018, the product was market proven and the team, which we had previously backed at , was ready to hit the ground running.鈥�

As mentioned above, GDPR鈥檚 U.S.-based successor, CCPA, went into effect last month and OneTrust is already seeing massive demand from the market, Wells added.

鈥淭he pace at which OneTrust has been able to release new modules and partner integrations is a testament to their innovative technology,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey are building a true platform that we believe will be embedded in the privacy officer鈥檚 workflow for businesses of all sizes.鈥�

For more on the surprisingly robust Atlanta startup scene, check out my in-depth look at the market here.

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Previously, the Golden, Colorado-based company has the ambitious goal of changing the way 500 companies 鈥渕ove products from the warehouse door to the road.鈥� It has been quietly operating and working on its technology since June 2017. Outrider raised an $8.5 million seed round, led by NEA, in June 2018, and then a $44.5 million Series A led by 8VC in April 2019. Other investors include , , , , 聽 and the .

聽founded Outrider, which essentially seeks to automate every aspect of logistics yards such as moving trailers around the yard, hitching and unhitching, connecting and disconnecting brake lines, and identifying and managing trailer locations.

While all this doesn鈥檛 necessarily sound as sexy as some other high-flying industries, such as self-driving cars or scooters, the company maintains there is a big need for increased efficiency in the space.

The goal of distribution yards, Smith maintains, is to keep semi-trailers full of freight moving quickly in the space between the warehouse doors and public roads. However, he says, many of the current processes that make up yard operations are manual, inefficient and hazardous.

Outrider has paid pilot programs in place with and four unnamed Fortune 200 companies.

How it works

The Outrider System is integrated in three parts: SaaS-based management software, autonomous zero-emission yard trucks that feature vision-based robotics, and site infrastructure. It integrates with existing supply chain software used by large enterprises.

Ultimately, Outrider鈥檚 mission is 鈥渢o drive the rapid adoption of sustainable freight transportation by deploying zero-emission systems.鈥� At scale, the company says it will deliver yards that are more efficient, safer and more sustainable for logistics hubs.

鈥淟ogistics yards offer a well-defined environment and a set of discrete, repetitive tasks that make the ideal use case for autonomous technology. But today鈥檚 yards are also complex, often chaotic environments, with many manual tasks,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淭his is why a systems approach is necessary to automate every major task in the yard.鈥�

Outrider says it automates those repetitive, manual aspects of yard operations and does it in a more environmentally responsible way.

鈥淢odern distribution yards aren鈥檛 just autonomous, they are electric,鈥� continued Smith. 鈥淓lectric yard trucks are easier to operate and maintain than their diesel counterparts.鈥�

For now, Outrider is focused on North American companies in the consumer packaged goods, package delivery, manufacturing, retail and transportation industries.

Outside perspective

, vice president of automation transformation at Georgia-Pacific, said his company is constantly looking for ways to transform to make work safer, more efficient and productive.

鈥淵ard operations has been one of our opportunities, and Outrider has been a great partner to help us automate our pilot site,鈥� Patel said.

Meanwhile, 8VC Founding Partner said his firm considers hundreds of investment opportunities in the logistics space every year. It chose to back Outrider because of its 鈥渉ighly compelling鈥� vision and plan for the industry.

Outrider has more than 75 employees, including 50 engineers solely focused on distribution yard automation–that鈥檚 up from 19 employees a year ago. It says its engineering project leads 鈥渢otal more than 100 years of hands-on experience in ground-vehicle automation and robotic material-handling development.鈥�

The company plans to use its new capital to hire more engineers as well as to invest in the rollout of its commercial system.

Blog Roll Illustration:

We’ll have some coverage out shortly regarding the newest mega-rounds, but I wanted to bring up a few newsy items not directly related to raising money this morning.

First, the latest from , a company that is in the process of going public. Second, a note on what we’ve been watching in . And, finally, a question regarding which private companies will report partial results regarding their second-quarter performance.

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽Subscribe to the SA国际传媒 Daily

The first will help us understand the IPO market, the second will help us grok what’s going on with crypto-related startups, and the final issue could help shape how we view which decacorns are ready to go public. Let’s go!

The Postmates IPO

Yesterday , CEO made a few comments on his company’s IPO process, and rumors concerning a possible sale of the company. (He was also on stage to talk about the company’s wheeled delivery vehicles.) Asked about going public, he said while he couldn’t comment, he would “love to take Postmates public.”

The answer was unsurprising given that Postmates has filed to go public. But when asked about articles noting that his company might sell to a rival, Lehmann had several interesting things to say. First, that his company is “growing twice as fast as , as .” Pinning down what “growth” means won’t be easy (revenue? order volume?), but the claim that the delivery-focused service is growing more quickly than larger, more valuable rivals is notable.

Lehmann also said that “if you take the necessary steps to prepare your company to go public you will get inbound” interest. This rings true, as we’ve seen some high-profile acquisition deals land right before some IPOs in recent years; it isn’t clear if Postmates is as healthy as was before it was snapped up on the eve of its public offering, but that Postmates is answering the phone, instead of making calls matters.

Regarding what to do with possible deals, Lehmann said that his company always takes a “look” at such interest, and then makes “the smart decision.”

Summarizing, the Postmates IPO is still on provided that a larger company isn’t willing to cut an outsized check to snap up Postmates. At least that’s the sentiment that Lehmann was hoping to cultivate. Regardless, let’s see the S-1.

Crypto: Up And Down

After an up year (2017) and a down year (2018), the world of cryptocurrencies was quiet in early 2019, before bitcoin and other popular blockchain-based products . The value of a single bitcoin pierced the $13,000 mark before falling back under $10,000.

If you aren’t into watching the cryptocurrency markets around the clock (shame on you if you aren’t; shame on you if you are) you’ve missed the latest action. But don’t worry, I don’t think there’s too much you have to retain from the recent appreciation in crypto-assets. Really you just need to know two things:

• When bitcoin’s price rises, it drives media interest, and mass-market attention. Bitcoin’s highest trading volumes come when it appreciates, along with spikes in search engine interest and the like. Thus, bitcoin appreciating is good for companies who work in the cryptocurrency space. Firms like , for example, who provide a consumer-friendly onramp into the world of crypto and make money on the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies.
• Bitcoin’s is growing once again. In the earlier days of the blockchain boom, bitcoin’s value was over 80 percent of the value of all crypto assets. That fell into the 30s in early 2018. Today the percentage is back to 65. This means that smaller coins are struggling once again and that the link between the value of bitcoin, and other similar products, could be loosening.

And with that, you can go back to not caring about bitcoin.

WeWork, And Who Else?

Now that the third quarter is underway, the public markets are gearing up for earnings season. For us covering the private markets, it’s usually a period of watching and not participating much. But in recent quarters, some private companies have taken on the mantle of public shops, at least when it comes to regular disbursements of financial data relating to their recent performance.

started doing this ages ago, and took part in the game as well before going public. also reports some performance. What do these companies have in common? They were (are, in the case of WeWork) some of the most valuable startups ever put together.

It seems that private companies worth $10 billion or more are disclosing information normally kept under wraps while they await going public. You can imagine why this is becoming more common. By sharing the information they want, decacorns can control their public narrative by disclosing their best figures. And, what better way to combat leaks than to disclose the information yourself in the manner of your choosing?

Also, regular reports of good performance could diminish calls for short-term liquidity from existing shareholders. A good report must renew faith among the shareholding. Of course, there are the normal risks that come from such disclosures, including providing asymmetrical information to yet-private competitors, and the chance that your results aren’t as good as you think, leading to ridicule.

Regardless of the fears, companies聽are doing this, and I want to encourage it. Which brings us to our final point of the morning. Namely, which company is next? I suspect we’ll see fresh Q2 numbers from WeWork in the next few weeks (here’s our take on its Q1 figures), but what company is the next to begin releasing earnings before going public? ?

Whichever firm it is, please know that I love email.

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