How Adthena Crossed $7.5M in ARR in Enterprise Ad Tech Space

In the marketing world, any edge you can get on your competition could mean massive success down the road. You must stay attune to the latest trends and campaigns of your competitors in order to deliver your message in a unique manner that grabs your audience’s attention.

Adthena was constructed to help businesses outsmart their competitors with machine learned insights. Their software helps companies gain complete market awareness, reveal competitor bidding spend, identify search term opportunities, analyze ad copy, and more.

How much is Adthena doing in ARR?

Adthena is a pure-play SaaS business that typically charges enterprises on an annual, upfront basis. According to CEO Ian O’Rourke, the average customer pays them approximately $50k per year right now.

Launched in the beginning of 2013, Adthena has grown to serve 200 total enterprise customers today and is currently doing north of $7.5M in ARR. Overall, the company is currently on track to grow 115% this year after growing 84% year over year in 2017.

What is Adthena’s churn?

Today, Adthena is exhibiting 90% gross revenue retention annually. O’Rourke explained that the company did not focus on driving expansion revenue in the early days and grew solely through new customer acquisition up until 18 months ago. Since then, the company has averaged net revenue retention close to 100% each month through upsells.

With a sales team of 20 full-time employees, Adthena is landing new deals primarily through inside sales. The company spends roughly $30k to acquire a new customer today and receives payback immediately on a cash basis. They also assume an LTV between $120k and $140k over three years.

How much has Adthena raised?

While initially bootstrapped by O’Rourke and the team’s other co-founders, Adthena has raised $5M in total outside capital from angel investors and during a Series A round. The company is currently not cash flow positive, but should be hitting profitability in early 2019.

Adthena’s team of 80 full-time employees is based in Austin, London, and Sydney today.