Yammer’s pitch deck that helped it raise its next $17m

ABOUT

Founded in 2008, Yammer is an enterprise social network that brings together employees, content, conversations, and business data in a single location. It connects the organization’s front-runners or top-level leaders back at headquarters to see everyone’s progress come together.

In 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for US$1.2 billion, integrating it with Office 365’s suite of services. The startup’s founder and CEO David O. Sacks left Yammer and Microsoft in 2014 and later launched an early-stage VC firm called Craft Ventures.

Microsoft has been actively investing on Yammer, Seth Patton, a 15-year veteran at Microsoft who works on Office 365, previously said.

The product is up against business communications platform Slack, which claims to have more than 12 million daily active users and 119,000 paid customers. Google and Facebook have also joined the race in the enterprise social product space by launching Hangouts Chat and Workplace by Facebook, respectively.

Fundraising journey

• 2009: US$5 million from the Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures
• February 2010: US$10 million from Emergence Capital, Ron Conway, and previous investors
• November 2010: US$25 million from US Venture Partners, Emergence Capital, Charles River Ventures, and Founders Fund
• 2011: US$17 million from The Social+Capital Partnership, Charles River Ventures, Emergence Capital, and US Venture Partners
• 2012: US$85 million from DFJ growth, Social+Capital Partnership, Meritech, Khosla Ventures, Capricorn, Charles River Ventures, Founders Fund, USVP, and Emergence Capital Partners

How is the deck compelling?

• The deck uses charts and numbers to clearly illustrate a number of real-life difficulties people usually face at work and how much it costs for a company to address those issues.
• It makes sure it introduces the company in a very concise manner.
• By sharing testimonies from real and active users such as electronics major LG, the company is able to prove that its product can help businesses save three hours a week – which equates to a 7.5% productivity increase on a typical workweek, or around US$7,500 saved per employee a year.
• The deck effectively shows how Yammer works through screenshots of the app.

SOURCE

Deck: Startup Deck