风险投资人如何看待“SaaS王者”Salesforce65亿美金收购Mulesoft？

Posted 2021-04-28 GGV纪源资本

这次收购就像当年扎克伯格收购instagram一样——虽然当时看起来很昂贵，但是长远来看是聪明之举。

 文/GGV纪源资本管理合伙人Glenn Solomen

关于Glenn Solomon：Glenn于2006年加入纪源资本，目前担任管理合伙人。他主导了纪源资本对Pandora (NYSE: P)、 Zendesk (NYSE: ZEN)、 Square (NYSE: SQ)、 Successfactors (NYSE: SFSF/被 SAP收购)、Isilon(NASDAQ: ISLN/被EMC收购)、Quinstreet (NASDAQ: QNST)、Nimble Storage(NYSE:NMBL)、 Airbnb、 AlienVault、BitSight Technologies、Conviva、 DOMO、 Gridstore、 HashiCorp、NS1、Opendoor和 Restless Bandit、 Slack、 Synack的投资, 并帮助前七家公司成功上市。Glenn关注企业软件和服务（SaaS）、云基础建设和移动技术领域。他连续多年入选福布斯最佳创投人榜。

引言：

微软、谷歌、IBM、阿里、腾讯都投入巨资在云计算，未来，云会变得无处不在，所有公司都在变成软件公司。这次天价收购将被视为标杆，甚至影响整个行业。Salesforce用65亿美元（Mulesoft2018年营收的16倍）的代价，将其收入囊中，真的是聪明之举吗？会对整个基础软件行业有哪些影响？

近期，Mulesoft公司同意被Salesforce公司以65亿美元的价格收购，这一新闻标志着在企业技术世界中一个重大的转折点。为什么这场收购如此重要？以下是我的一些想法：

 1

所有互联网巨头都在布局云计算

云计算领域的竞争是我们能看到的科技领域中最激烈的战斗。AWS如今在经营收入上超过了20亿美元，增长率超过40%，盈利能力非常强，它的运营利润率超过了25%。与此同时，微软的Azure增长得更快，AWS，谷歌都在投入巨资，IBM，甲骨文，阿里巴巴和腾讯也紧随其后。他们都意识到云计算大有可为。Salesforce成立于十年前，尽管它们有特许经营权，但是由于成立得实在太早，导致它们无法在公共云计算领域中享有一席。

 

Salesforce专注于搭建应用程序云（销售、市场营销、服务等等）来尽可能地吸引企业客户。虽然它们取得了成功，但是从长期来看，Salesforce容易受到公共云平台的冲击。这些公共云平台正迅速吸收企业数据和商业逻辑，日益成为大企业战略的核心。在多云和混合云迅速发展之时，Salesforce需要找到保持其防御的方法。Mulesoft是一个非常合适的选择。Mulesoft将帮助Salesforce在任何地方访问数据、分析数据并且重写入本地系统。这样能使Salesforce成为客户企业的中心，而不会因为云供应商试图抢夺中心位置而旁落边缘地位。

 

 2

云变得无处不在，所有公司都在变成软件公司

Salesforce是一个商业应用程序公司。他们向商业用户出售产品。Mulesoft卖给了IT部门，即基础架构部门。Mulesoft融合的最终结果往往有利于终端用户，但Mulesoft是为技术人员搭建的技术产品。Salesforce进军基础机构领域是一个大胆的举措，我相信这表明科技领域正在发生变化。没错，商业用户是传统价值所在，但是现在开发人员。像DevOps，SepOps和其他技术团队对于公司的业务战略越来越关键了。所有公司都在变成软件公司，云变得无处不在，应用程序和基础架构之间的界限也将变得愈发模糊。

  3

一个新巨头的战略布局

 

Salesforce公司预计2018年营收约120亿美元，市值约有一千亿美元。它不再是一个不起眼的软件公司了，它已经变成了一个巨头。在这样的情境下，65亿美元并不算多。考虑到AWS目前市值已达到了3000至4000亿美元，Salesforce必须好好思考如何保持市场竞争力，特别是现在数据和工作都已经转移到了公共云上。这次收购就像当年扎克伯格收购instagram一样——虽然当时看起来很昂贵，但是长远来看是聪明之举。

 4

估值超过营收16倍，但不贵

Mulesoft在2017年营收约为3亿美元，并且其在2018年有望实现约4亿美元的营收。65亿美元的价格意味着Mulesoft公司2018年收入的16倍。正如我在上文中所说的，Mulesoft对Salesforce来说具有很强的战略意义，但这次的收购数额之大在软件领域还是具有标杆性的。

  5

这次收购将促使对基础软件公司价值的重估

我认为这次交易将会迫使风险投资公司和投资者重新考虑并且很可能会对许多基础软件公司进行重新评估。云计算的竞争正变得越来越有趣。这些竞争者非常认真，他们准备了大量的资金，是想玩真的。那些在云计算领域成功的创业公司会享受到像Mulesoft公司相同的待遇。但如果给云供应商造成了阻碍，他们会被击垮。

以下为英文版：

Mulesoft hadagreed to a $6.5Bn acquisition by Salesforce marks an intriguing inflectionpoint in the world of enterprise technology. Here are my thoughts on why this transaction is so important.

 

• The Continued Inexorable Force of Multi-Cloud Computing.

As I’vedetailed previously, the cloud computing battle is now the fiercest,highest-stakes battle we’ve ever seen in technology. AWS is now running at over$20Bn in run rate revenue, growing over 40% and extremely profitable, withoperating margins north of 25%. Meanwhile Microsoft Azure is growing evenfaster that AWS, Google is investing heavily, as are IBM, Oracle, Alibaba andTencent. They all realize the stakes are very high. Salesforce was born about10 years too early and, despite having a remarkable franchise, doesn’t have anatural play in public cloud computing as a result. Salesforce has insteadfocused on building out application clouds (sales, marketing, service, etc) tocapture as many business users in enterprises as possible. Despite its success,Salesforce is vulnerable in the long term to being out-maneuvered by the publiccloud platforms, who are rapidly sucking in enterprise data and business logic,and becoming more central to large enterprise’s strategy with every passingday. As multi-cloud and hybrid cloud prevail, Salesforce needed to find a wayto keep its defenses up. Mulesoft is a very smart answer. Mulesoft will helpSalesforce access data wherever it lives, analyze and re-write it to nativesystems, thus keeping Salesforce in the center of the universe for itscustomers rather than risk being relegated to the bleacher seats as cloudvendors attempt to grab center stage.

 

• The Merging of Application Software and Infrastructure.

 

Salesforce isthe ultimate business application company. They sell to business users.Mulesoft sells to IT, hence infrastructure. Sure, the end result of Mulesoft’sintegrations often-times benefit end users, but Mulesoft is a technology stackbuilt for technologists. Salesforce making a foray into infrastructurerepresents a bold move, and I believe shows that the game is changing intechnology. Yes, business users are where the value resides, but nowdevelopers, DevOps, SecOps and other groups within technology are becoming moreand more key to companies’ business strategies. As all companies becomesoftware companies and the cloud becomes ubiquitous, the demarcation betweenapplication and infrastructure is going to continue to blur.

 

• The Size of the Prize.

 

Salesforce isprojected to do about $12Bn in revenue for ’18 and has a market value rightabout $100Bn. This isn’t your grandmother’s cute enterprise software company.Its a juggernaut. In that context, $6.5Bn isn’t much.  Given that AWS on its own is likely worth$300-400Bn right now, Salesforce has to keep thinking boldly to stay in thegame, especially as data and workloads move to the public cloud. Thisacquisition may end up being Benioff’s version of Zuckerberg’s Instagramstratagem – it looks expensive at the time, but is brilliant from a strategicperspective longer term.

 

• The Valuation.

Mulesoft didabout $300M in revenue in ’17 and was on track to do roughly $400M in revenuein ’18. So the $6.5Bn price represents 16x ’18 revenue. As discussed above,Mulesoft is highly strategic to Salesforce but this sets a benchmark rarelyseen before in software.

• What This Means for the Rest of Tech.

 

I think this deal will force VCs and investors to re-thinkand possibly re-rate many infrastructure software companies. The cloudcomputing wars keep getting more interesting. The players are very serious,have extremely deep pockets and are playing for keeps. Those startups thatnavigate the waters successfully will enjoy similarly great outcomes toMulesoft. But, others will get crushed if they get in the way of the cloudvendors.

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文章系转载，仅代表作者观点，

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公司简介

GGV纪源资本成立于2000年，是一家专注于中美两地早中期企业的风险投资机构，管理8支基金，共计38亿美元的资产，在硅谷、上海和北京设有办公室。作为硅谷最早投资中国企业的风险投资基金之一 , GGV投资过包括阿里巴巴、滴滴出行、去哪儿、YY、Airbnb、Square、Wish、小红书等两百余家公司。截止2017年2月，其投资的公司中有29家已经上市，未上市公司中有17家估值超过10亿美元的独角兽公司，5家估值超过5亿美元的准独角兽公司。

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