Founder Interview
How Wunderkind Is Growing 50% a Year and Raising a Nine-Figure Strategic Round on the Path to IPO (Interview with Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Urban)
- Interview Date
- November 4, 2021
- Interviewee
- Ryan UrbanCo-Founder and CEO
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Revenue Growth (2021)
50% year-over-year
Total Funding Raised (2021)
$75M
Indianapolis Office (2021)
110 people
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Ryan Urban during his interview with Nathan Latka recorded in November 2021 and represent a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Wunderkind’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways
- 01Ryan Urban said 2021 was tracking to about 50% revenue growth on what he called a big base
- 02Total funding raised was $75M, roughly half equity and half debt, as of the interview
- 03The company had acquired five companies by the time of the interview
- 04About 40% of customers came to Wunderkind by word-of-mouth referral, which Ryan Urban called very rare for enterprise software
- 05About 40% of Wunderkind's employees also arrived by referral, with a "fifty fifty club" named as the goal
- 06Wunderkind had 110 people in its Indianapolis office at interview time, with New York, London and Austin offices and Paris opening
- 07The company was profitable in 2020 but made significant R&D investments in 2021
- 08Ryan Urban took a $1.5M venture round in 2013 after reaching $1M ARR
- 09Wunderkind was targeting a nine-figure strategic financing round at the time of the interview
- 10The company operates two revenue streams: a SaaS identity and personalization product and a Wunderkind Advertising marketplace
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth (2021) | 50% year-over-year | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| Total Funding Raised (2021) | $75M | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| Venture Round (2013) | $1.5M | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| ARR Before 2013 Round | $1M ARR | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| Indianapolis Headcount (2021) | 110 people | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| Companies Acquired | 5 | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| Word-of-Mouth Customer Share (2021) | about 40% | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| Employee Referral Share (2021) | about 40% | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
| Profitable (2020) | Yes | Founder interview, Nov 2021 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
Ryan Urban said Wunderkind was tracking to about 50% revenue growth for 2021 on what he called a big base, while declining to publish exact numbers. The company operates two revenue streams: a SaaS identity resolution and personalization product serving commerce brands, and Wunderkind Advertising, a premium publisher marketplace that has been running for about five years.
Customers and Partners
Wunderkind works with commerce brands ranging from large enterprise retailers to companies doing as little as $3M online, as well as major publishers including Comscore 250 properties. About 40% of its customers arrived through word-of-mouth referrals, which Ryan described as rare for an enterprise software company.
Team
Ryan Urban said Wunderkind had 110 people in its Indianapolis office at the time of the interview, alongside its New York base on the 75th floor of the World Trade Center. London was building out, Austin was expanding, a Paris office was due to open early the following year, the company had people in Ukraine, and Quebec City and Miami were under consideration. Referrals were a major hiring channel: he put Wunderkind in what he called the "forty forty club" for referred customers and referred employees.
Profitability and Funding
Wunderkind was profitable in 2020 but reinvested heavily in R&D in 2021. Of the $75M raised to date, Ryan Urban said it was roughly half equity and half debt. He also said the company had acquired five companies and that he did not want to sell equity or dilute the company in order to make acquisitions. A nine-figure strategic financing round was in progress at the time of the interview.
Growth Strategy
Word-of-Mouth and Referral Engine
Ryan Urban said about 40% of Wunderkind's customers and about 40% of its employees arrive by referral, a state he called the "forty forty club", with the "fifty fifty club" as the stated goal. Word-of-mouth acquisition at that level, he said, is very rare for an enterprise software company, and the two loops reinforce each other: clients refer clients and employees refer employees.
Identity Resolution Technology
Wunderkind's flagship product recognizes nearly 50% of website visitors for its brand clients, enabling personalized email and on-site experiences. Ryan stated the company can typically grow a client's email-driven revenue from 1% to 10% of total revenue and increase overall business by up to 20% when using the full platform.
Dual Revenue Stream Expansion
The company built a second revenue line in Wunderkind Advertising, a premium publisher marketplace where agencies buy exclusive inventory. Ryan described this as a way to bring Facebook and Instagram-quality performance advertising to the broader open internet, with both businesses expected to grow independently.
Acquisition Strategy
Wunderkind acquired five companies without selling equity to do it. Ryan Urban said he did not want to dilute the company to acquire companies, and separately that the $75M raised to date was roughly half equity and half debt. He described acquisitions as a way to bring in great people and technology, particularly when a clear revenue stream could be identified behind the deal.
Geographic and Vertical Expansion
At the time of the interview, Wunderkind was expanding from its New York and Indianapolis bases into London, Austin, Paris, and potentially Quebec City and Miami. Ryan framed geographic diversity as a way to access different talent pools and build company culture across multiple markets.
Best Quotes
“Last year was just our best year in delivering improving the value of product service. So, like, the revenue growth comes, like, when when you wanna grow revenue wise, that that that comes after your your product service get really good.”
“It's almost half of wunderkind people work here come also by referrals. So our clients are referring us and our wunderkind's our employees, our wunderkind's referring other people here. So that's like, those are the important numbers. We like so we're we're at the forty forty club. We're like, we'll go get the fifty fifty club.”
“And then we took a very small, a million and a half venture round in in 2013, after we had a million ARR.”
“Say it's about half and half, the debt. We've acquired five companies. So when you acquire companies, you don't want to sell equity. You don't want to dilute your company to acquire companies. So we've made some acquisitions, including an amazing one last year, and they've worked out really well, acquiring great people, sometimes technology people.”
“This year, we actually did end up last year profitable, but this year, like, we we made a big R and D investments this year. And next year, it's really about expanding doing a lot of vertical and geographic expansion too.”
“we would just help them scale their scale all their email personalization efforts. And by doing that, we usually take be able to take revenue that people drive personalization, especially personalized email from usually 1% of the revenue to 10% of revenue. We're usually able to grow email partners by 50% by scaling personalization.”
What Happened Next
This interview captured Wunderkind in November 2021, when the company was reporting 50% year-over-year revenue growth and preparing for a nine-figure strategic financing round ahead of a potential IPO. The figures and plans Ryan Urban described reflect that specific moment in the company's history and should not be read as current. Visit the Wunderkind company profile on GetLatka for the latest available data on revenue, funding, and headcount.
View Wunderkind’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Background
- 0:40IPO Ambitions and Pre-IPO Process
- 2:57Revenue Growth and Product Value
- 4:0550% Growth Rate and Scale
- 4:27Word-of-Mouth and Referral Engine
- 5:08Office Expansion and Team Size
- 7:22Two Customer Groups: Brands and Publishers
- 9:46SaaS vs Advertising Revenue Streams
- 11:14Identity Resolution and Email Personalization
- 11:33Wunderkind Advertising Marketplace
- 16:13Funding History and Debt vs Equity
- 16:57Five Acquisitions and Capital Strategy
- 17:28Raising a Nine-Figure Strategic Round
- 17:53Profitability and R&D Investment
- 18:31Public-Market Comps and Going Public
- 20:04Hiring and Closing Remarks
Introduction and Background
Nathan Latka
00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Ryan Urban. He's the co founder and he's the CEO and founder of wunderkind. He's been had an obsession with undeniable performance, and under Ryan's leadership, the company has been named one of the best places to work by both Cranes New York and was ranked the number one fastest growing software company by the Inc five hundred. Ryan, you ready to take to the top?
Ryan Urban
00:18>> Let's go. Let's go, Nathan. What's up?
Nathan Latka
00:19Alright. So previously, BounceX and now wunderkind, next gen performance marketing. Tell me a little bit. I I see the new hairdo. Do you still have black toenails or no?
Ryan Urban
00:28>> Oh, I've I've we got hair nails and everything. So now we got a now we got a little Batman by all means. Got got a little Viking stuff going on. Got a little Spider Man too.
Nathan Latka
00:38I love it.
Ryan Urban
00:39>> Every two weeks, you gotta go fresh. Yeah.
IPO Ambitions and Pre-IPO Process
Nathan Latka
00:40So this means this means you're not going on an IPO roadshow anytime in the next three months. Right? You know what? I
Ryan Urban
00:46>> you know what? The world's come a long way. So I I actually was on a we did do a kind of a pre IPO, like a crossover fund process, and I really wanted to kind of introduce what wunderkind does to a lot of the public company investors. And because at some point, it could be next year, it could be early twenty three, whenever whenever whenever we feel it's appropriate. Yeah. We're we're we're probably gonna be a
01:08>> a public company at some point, it's something we're we're we're looking forward to. But, yeah, like, you you know what? Like, you can have your you can have your nails painted and and do that, and you're not judged anymore. It's it's awesome. It's a it's a great part of conversation. I I I kept the sides. I didn't have designs in the sides, but this is Halloween. So now now we've kind of completed that process, and now
01:26>> it's time to have a little fun there too. So but everyone's pretty open. It's the world's way more inclusive than it was three years ago. So Folks,
Nathan Latka
01:32it's you heard it here first. You can have your black toenails and your IPO too.
Ryan Urban
01:35>> Also, kinda like gonna script it.
Nathan Latka
01:41I love it. Wait. So what was the name of the thing that you said you did where you sort of just put feelers out there, let people know who you were? It's called a what? A it's not a No. No.
Ryan Urban
01:48>> That's that's like we we went through I know I it's a strategic finance process. So some companies need a fundraise to, like, companies that lose a lot of money. For us, it's like we we're doing great. We're we're probably by the time this airs, maybe even a thousand people. We'll probably be 800 people soon. This has been a a great year for us, our best year ever. And I'm like, I'm calling from the I'm dialing in
02:10>> from the World Trade Center right now.
Nathan Latka
02:11Can see us.
Ryan Urban
02:12>> Look at this. Yeah. This is we're on the 75th Floor right now. I'm in a a blue rose a room. You can check it out.
Nathan Latka
02:18And you negotiated a killer deal on this office space, I believe. Right?
Ryan Urban
02:22>> We we did. Well, it's look, it's when we came here, we were planning this out about four years ago. We've been here about three years now. And this is the this is the most beautiful space, I think, in the world. And it's a and they they really wanted an anchor technology tenant that's that's on the way up. And we came in, and the whole building really came alive. So this is like like, people are we're we're
02:43>> coming in. It's just really good energy. So it's it's awesome. And maybe we'll talk about how how we're kinda leading leading way on some of flexible and office stuff after. But, yeah, the things are going great.
Nathan Latka
02:51I'd love to chat more about that in a second. Yeah. When you say fastest growing ever, mean, how what'd you guys grow at revenue over the past twelve months?
Revenue Growth and Product Value
Ryan Urban
02:57>> Yeah. I it's it's it's I'd say, I'll I'll take a step back. Last year was just our best year in delivering improving the value of product service. So, like, the revenue growth comes, like, when when you wanna grow revenue wise, that that that comes after your your product service get really good. And and for us, like, we sell revenue. So a lot of software companies sell, like like, time savings and efficiency. We our software delivers revenue
03:22>> by improved experience. And we we improved our regular offering so much of our identity as a technology, like, got that really up to a different level where we recognize nearly 50% of of people. It's awesome. We we delivered an enterprise text platform last year, and that boom where if someone used our full story, we can we can increase the business by by 20%. And that's like a real number. It's like within a year, like, we can
03:44>> increase almost any business within 20%. So So it's pretty cool. And and generally, we're doing or if if someone has, a course, we were in six months, we're averaging a 10% increase, and we do that by scaling their personalization. So then here, yeah, then you you get some the big growth world. Yeah. I think, like, revenue wise, we'll probably we're we have big scale. So I we don't, like, publicize our exact numbers. I know you you
50% Growth Rate and Scale
Ryan Urban
04:05>> you you do some inferring. But, yeah, it's gonna be about a 50% revenue growth 50% growth year for us. And that's that's on a big base, and that's without, like, without deploying, like, a ton of strategic financing. So we're not the company that's raising $200,000,000 rounds and, like, hiring a million, like, 300 more salespeople and and playing stuff. We're earning it. But almost all of, like now it's, like, half our customers come by word-of-mouth for bid
Word-of-Mouth and Referral Engine
Ryan Urban
04:27>> for enterprise software company. That's very rare. It's almost half of wunderkind people work here come also by referrals. So our clients are referring us and our wunderkind's our employees, our wunderkind's referring other people here. So that's like, those are the important numbers. We like so we're we're at the forty forty club. We're like, we'll go get the fifty fifty club. And eventually, like, it's just all of our clients will be referred by the clients, and and
04:47>> all of our all of our wunderkind's will be referred by the wunderkind's. So it's it's really nice. And I'm honestly, like, we our product and service and our leadership team and our rev is we can be a public company right now. It's like, wanna get a feel. Like, to be a public company, you we you of course, you want predictability in revenue. I want predictability on shipping value, on operating velocity. So and we have good operating
Office Expansion and Team Size
Ryan Urban
05:08>> velocity, but I want the innovation velocity. I want predictability and innovation velocity. And for me, I wanna be shipping like three to 5% in in in revenue a quarter. And we're we're getting close to that. So it's a it's like we we now have offices in New York, Indianapolis. I have a 100 peep 110 people in Indianapolis now, which is awesome. It's like having some geographic diversity. It's not only you get, like, different kind of people,
05:28>> it's like it's it's really nice. You get access to different talent. And people have a great office. You you people come to your company and know what success is. Like, it's just good energy. It's it's good good blood. And London's really building out. I'm opening office in expanding Austin now. I'm opening office in Paris and Paris early next year. I'm going to Ukraine in a few weeks, and we have some people there. We're gonna do some
05:48>> nice there. Probably Quebec City, probably Miami. We're just on the phone, the mayor of Miami a couple weeks ago. So there's a new mayor in New York now, and, like, we really wanna really recruit a lot of technology that comes to New York, and we wanna be the ambassador of that. It's like, come come to New York. It's it's a cool place. So it's a it's just an energizing time. It's I've this is year and I
06:05>> for us. Like, we've each other for like five or six years. You knew me when we were like doing like 20,000,000 revenue. So it's a
Nathan Latka
06:12I remember those days. You hosted a great poker event a couple years ago, which I met a lot That of cool people was a ton of fun. But and you guys are growing. Mean, you know, you pub I know you don't like talking about numbers, but you did put out publicly on February twenty sixth last year saying the company broke a $100,000,000 in annual revenue, and that's when you rebranded to wunderkind. So if you Upbranded.
Ryan Urban
06:28>> Upbranded. Yep. You what? Upbranded. Not rebranded.
Nathan Latka
06:31Upbranded. Okay. You're you're you're rebranding the rebrand. So it's upbrand Well, there are rebrands.
Ryan Urban
06:36>> A rebrand is like when an up brand is like, you really take your heritage and and everything you are and where you're going and and bounce actually was That's fine.
Nathan Latka
06:43I get it. I get it. It's a much better name. A much better name, and it
Ryan Urban
06:46>> matches But your
Nathan Latka
06:47but but point being is early February last year, you guys broke $100,000,000 in annual revenue. If you're growing 50% year over year, still that's a massive base. I mean, that would put you over $150,000,000 now in revenue. Is that right, annualized?
Ryan Urban
07:00>> Can infer Med's still a private company, but we're definitely a-
Nathan Latka
07:04But Ryan, I don't wanna infer. So you just said you were gonna grow 50% year over year on a big base and you publishized the base a year ago. So I only, I don't wanna infer here.
Ryan Urban
07:11>> Yeah. So it's, you're in the ballpark.
Nathan Latka
07:14Then- Okay. What is the revenue split? Let's talk about the product, right? Because you built a great product. Doing multi channel marketing for three core areas. Tell us about those areas.
Two Customer Groups: Brands and Publishers
Ryan Urban
07:22>> Yeah. I mean, I call it multi channel marketing. We have two customers. They're they're one customer brands, and we work with some of best friends in the world, and some of our brands are commerce brands. Commerce brands means you're doing transaction online. So sometimes it's like e commerce retailers. We always call it commerce. So there's no such thing as direct to consumer. It's like it's just commerce. And our second kind of the second kind of brands
07:43>> we work with are our publishers. So one customer group is brands. Our other customer is people, consumers. So every product we build is, like, for the benefit of people, improve improving the shopping experience. So we build things like, what are consumers like interacting with? And and then we then we connect brands to consumers, basically. We that's that's kinda kinda what we do. I everything we do is is taking, like, what people call personalization and and scaling
08:07>> that. It's everything we do is generally one to one. It's like, how do you create one to one experiences and scale those things? So we invent all new one to one technologies. Specifically though,
Nathan Latka
08:16retailers, publishers, and travel. Right?
Ryan Urban
08:20>> Oh, yeah. And it's not only just retailers. It's like anything commerce. So like like say, like, some big cable companies and big cell phone manufacturers, like so a huge company is like, they're doing trans they're doing transactions online now, they're doing billions. So now, we're working with a lot of companies in the the big, big range. But you know what? Also, we're we're supporting companies doing even even like 3,000,000 online, like so like, now we're starting
08:42>> to work with those companies too. And going back to back to last year, like, we made some big business decisions to that were not short term revenue focused, that were just client focused. Like we like, you mentioned travel, yeah. We had some airlines and some things, like their whole business was shut down, And we have a lot of companies that have a of retail stores, and yes, their online business went up, and then then they shut
09:01>> down a few 100 retail stores. And there are some businesses that really benefited. But like, we just did the right thing. Was like, hey, like like, we might need to pause some stuff. We might need to right price some people. We may need to give them a new product that drives more revenue. And we just create a menu, like, hey, like, who needs support? And let's like, forget what our contract says. Let's support our clients. Let's
09:21>> support the industry. Let's put out the right content. Let's let's get let's just do the right thing to support the industry. And and we would figure out how that, like we didn't matter what the impact was gonna have on our business. We were gonna do the right things for everybody. And then we did. And then then basically, once q three last year, like, our business started really taking over, so we did the right thing.
Nathan Latka
09:37And Ryan, if an advertiser puts, call it, 50,000,000 or $10,000,000 through wunderkind, the wunderkind platform, how do you count that as your revenue? Is you taking a cut of that or what?
SaaS vs Advertising Revenue Streams
Ryan Urban
09:46>> Okay. So, I mean, we have we have two kinds of revenue. It's one is just SaaS revenue. So that's people. I mean, our our flagship technology is our identity resolution technology. So, like, for for, say, a large name a I like you have your book in your background. I don't know which clients I can name or not, I don't wanna have called by a cut. Just name a name a name a large name a large retailer.
10:05>> Like, a large retailer. Target. Target. Cool. So Target, say they're Target, they're I think they do they're a public company. I think they do 25,000,000,000 a year in revenue online. It's like 75% of the people who come to Target's website are their customers, and they have they have permission to email them, market to them. The problem is, like, it's like probably 2% or so. It's definitely under five percent of people on Target's website are authenticating themselves,
10:31>> logging in. So Target doesn't can't recognize their own customers. When you can't recognize your own customers, like, not only the kind of website experience you kinda gotta start over, it can't doesn't
Nathan Latka
10:39have I mean, take us back to before you go into the Target, so there's two revenue streams. There's a SaaS, and then what's the other one?
Ryan Urban
10:43>> And and wunderkind advertising. Wunderkind advertising, which which I I think will probably approach that itself next year. We'll approach
Nathan Latka
10:50And Ryan, that's a percent of of ads basically is how you make money there?
Ryan Urban
10:54>> No. No. I'll I'll I'll I'll give I'll give you a thirty second one there. On on the on the SaaS side, we we really help brands recognize their customers and scale personalization. So, like, Target, in that example, it's their almost all their most of their traffic is their customers. They can't recognize anyone because people don't create accounts and no one's logging in when they're browsing. So all the personalization efforts, let's say if they were a customer,
Identity Resolution and Email Personalization
Ryan Urban
11:14>> which they they will be at some point, we would just help them scale their scale all their email personalization efforts. And by doing that, we usually take be able to take revenue that people drive personalization, especially personalized email from usually 1% of the revenue to 10% of revenue. We're usually able to grow email partners by 50% by scaling personalization.
Nathan Latka
11:30Got Personalization makes sense. Skip over to the ad side.
Wunderkind Advertising Marketplace
Ryan Urban
11:33>> So the ad side, wunderkind advertising, we're we do advertising infrastructure. Our view in the world is that advertising should be content. It should be a vibe. Advertising should be enjoyable. And a magazine's enjoyable. Actually, Instagram does a fantastic job of of advertising being enjoyable. Even your ads you see in Amazon, their response results when you do a search, they're they're they're pretty valuable. The advertising you see in Amazon is really good. So we work with, like,
11:54>> half the Comscore 250. You work with, like, like, the biggest ones, like the CNBC, the Weathers, the c n the CNN, those kind of big publishers. And we we really help them make advertising a vibe. So we we actually add infrastructure. We create the units itself. So we do that. It's like, let's create this beautiful, like, kind of newsfeed style units, like a magazine style unit.
Nathan Latka
12:13Is there a flat fee service to do the creatives, and then you also take a percent of the
Ryan Urban
12:16>> No, no. So, we create the infrastructure, and then we also we help we work with agencies, and the agencies actually buy our exclusive inventory through a private marketplace. I So we just felt that not only facilitate the technology, we also facilitate the buyers. And it's it's some it's it's very premium brand advertising. So it's advertising like it performs great for the brands, it performs great for the publisher, but the users enjoy it. It's like users really
12:38>> enjoy interacting with these ads because we don't we don't when you want when you get to a publisher, you usually get to an article. What do you wanna do? Do you wanna read the article? You don't wanna be it you don't wanna be
12:47>> No. No. Makes sense.
Nathan Latka
12:48So in 2021, how much how much how many ads will you process to the marketplace? Are we talking like billions of ad
Ryan Urban
12:53>> So we're actually, think effectively ads in probably Facebook and Instagram are probably $30 or $40 CPM effectively. Ours are probably $10 or $12 so it's
Nathan Latka
13:02a How much volume will you process in 2021? Total volume?
Ryan Urban
13:05>> I'd say it's a lot. It's significant amount.
Nathan Latka
13:11More than a billion right now?
Ryan Urban
13:12>> I would say next year oh, definitely. I'd say next year, we'd be getting closer to 9 figures in revenue on that. So
Nathan Latka
13:21But but ignore your revenue. I'm just talking, like, total ad spend processed. I mean, it's north of a billion. It's north of 5,000,000,000 this year?
Ryan Urban
13:28>> I had I I don't wanna go exact number. It's it's it's it's Internet scale. It's a it's a lot. It's it's a
Nathan Latka
13:34So what do you take then? If I put a billion 3, are you taking 1%, 2%, or is it something different?
Ryan Urban
13:38>> It's not 1%. We're we're we're we're facilitating everything. So instead of charging a technology fee or a CPM, like, say, Google, when you when you double click, they used to charge you a CPM, and you sell your own ads. So we we we we not only facilitate the technology, we also facilitate the demand. And for everything we do, it's it it depends on it, like the the publisher said.
Nathan Latka
13:58Lock up inventory at $20 CPMs and bill it out at $30 CPMs or whatever margin you want?
Ryan Urban
14:04>> It's it's we're we're facilitating everything. We even do for the agencies, we'll even But Ryan, sorry.
Nathan Latka
14:08I just wanna be very clear on this. Is that how you make money? You lock up inventory at a fixed CPM. You mark it up a little bit, and you make the spread.
Ryan Urban
14:16>> It's not exactly that. So we create the ad units, and we facilitate the demand. And then we help the agencies actually create the ad units. The agencies will then go buy it, and then we take a cut of that.
Nathan Latka
14:27The money
Ryan Urban
14:28>> comes to us, and then we we will get the publisher 50% plus of of that. Like, the publisher and it's it's not we're not securing inventory. It's our inventory. We're we're facilitating ad units, the demand. We're doing everything. The publisher just gets a really nice really nice ad experience, and they they collect money. So and actually, for publishers, there's two parts. Like, publishers, we they we have a SaaS business there where they pay us money to
14:50>> drive audience development, collect emails, write subscriptions. So they pay us, and then then if we have a lot of publishers where they pay us, and then we pay them. So it's like Got it. And sometimes two different departments. So it's really cool.
Nathan Latka
14:59And we're we're we're running out of time here, Ryan. So quickly, last twelve months total revenue, what was the split between your ad business unit and the SaaS business unit?
Ryan Urban
15:06>> I mean, they're they're both growing. So they're both growing on they're both they're Yeah.
15:10But what percent
15:10>> was It's it's let's see, percent of SaaS. I know you you like to like to do math here. And last twelve months is like I always think the future twelve months I say the future twelve months will probably be 40% advertising, but they're both gonna grow. I don't look at it as a percentage of pie. It's like, both the pie's gonna grow. These are ultimately, these are gonna be both billion dollar revenue businesses. And I
Nathan Latka
15:35think But what's bigger right now in terms of your last twelve months of revenue?
15:37You made more money on SaaS?
Ryan Urban
15:39>> It's not more. It's it's they're they're both yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're our our one that can advertise has only been around for five years, so our SaaS business has been around for nine. So it's it's different. Got it. And one works with publishers, one works works with with commerce companies. But we're connecting the two. So we're connecting the two, because Facebook and Instagram ads work really well, but they're really expensive. And we're and and I
15:58>> every commerce company in the world will love ads that work in addition to Facebook and Instagram. So we're we're taking that power, and we're we're building it to rest the Internet. So we're and I think we we have advertising that's even better than Facebook advertising. So we're that that's that's what we're unleashing everywhere next year.
Funding History and Debt vs Equity
Nathan Latka
16:13Ryan, last question. You've chosen to go down the venture path. You raised 75,000,000 to date. Your last round was 37,000,000 in 2018. You haven't raised since then. Anyone who knows what the venture path is like is gonna look at it and say, that feels like a negative signal. If they're growing as fast as Ryan is saying, someone would have preempted their next round at a valuation Ryan couldn't resist. Why haven't you raised money since 2018?
Ryan Urban
16:32>> Actually, I mean, the first four years, I I I funded it myself at the beginning, and deal is the co founder. So this deal was fully funded by us. And then we took a very small, a million and a half venture round in in 2013, after we had a million ARR. So we went the first, like, we went the first five years on very, very little venture money. And some of that 75,000,000, we it's a combination of
16:51>> equity and debt. So actually, put very little equity into the business. And and some
Nathan Latka
16:55of How much of the 75,000,000 was debt?
Five Acquisitions and Capital Strategy
Ryan Urban
16:57>> Say it's about half and half, the debt. We've acquired five companies. So when you acquire companies, you don't want to sell equity. You don't want to dilute your company to acquire companies. So we've made some acquisitions, including an amazing one last year, and they've worked out really well, acquiring great people, sometimes technology people. And last year, we did both. So, that's really good for that, I think. Especially because you know there's going to be a particular
17:19>> revenue stream that comes behind it. So, you don't want to just raise around to go do that. You might want to raise an account to do growth, and we are now, we're going to do a big one. But we we deployed very
Raising a Nine-Figure Strategic Round
Nathan Latka
17:28How much are you raising right now? What are you targeting?
Ryan Urban
17:29>> For a company of our size, say, north of a say, nine figures in well north of 9 figures in software scale, put it that way. It's a
Nathan Latka
17:38So you're targeting a you're you're raising right now a north of a $100,000,000 round targeting that?
Ryan Urban
17:43>> I would say raising around. Yeah. We're doing strategic financing because we we don't need to. We're we're we're good capitalized. But now it's you profitable?
Profitability and R&D Investment
Ryan Urban
17:53>> Quarters some quarters is the case. This year, we actually did end up last year profitable, but this year, like, we we made a big R and D investments this year. And next year, it's really about expanding doing a lot of vertical and geographic expansion too. So you make those investments, and they they pay back very quickly. So now
Nathan Latka
18:08we focus on raising nine figures right now, which would be like, basically, your series c. Do have a valuation you're targeting for that? I mean, can you get above a 1,500,000,000 valuation, you think?
Ryan Urban
18:16>> I I think as a as a public company, we look to like, privately, it's like it's less as a public company, you want something that's like kind of in line with public stuff, especially you wanna look at your growth rate, I think we'll have more than a 50% growth rate next year. And maybe we would do 60 or 70, depending on what
Public-Market Comps and Going Public
Nathan Latka
18:31we're you'd be valued at right now if you were public?
Ryan Urban
18:36>> I think
18:38>> we'd probably be in the eight to 10x next year's forward rev, maybe. Public and private is very different, so. Yeah, something like that. But it's a when when we're public, we're public, and that's that's a it's a good scoreboard. But, I mean, the reason I go public is is really just to attract talent. That's that's the main thing. It's like Yep. Yeah. No. I totally agree. Attract talent.
Nathan Latka
18:59So just to be clear, though, because I don't wanna put out wrong. Right? You're you're looking at raising a strategic ground right now or not?
Ryan Urban
19:04>> We're we're we're gonna do that. Yeah. So it's Very cool. We're gonna do that. And then and yeah. That's that's that's where you look to get the right partner. Someone's gonna be investing in looking at five year time horizon. Before your public company, say, year before that, you want someone who's looking at five year time horizon, wants to invest in your IPO, wants to recruit other great investors. People like, in our case, we're enterprise, so we
19:22>> want introductions to the CEO of Target. Right? So we wanna we wanna co design products. We wanna do a lot of we we wanna do a lot of really cool in store products. So it's like, we we wanna do that. So you need to work at really senior levels in organizations.
Nathan Latka
19:35Guys, there you have it. Ryan Urban, wunderkind.co. They passed a $100,000,000 in revenue last year.
Ryan Urban
19:41>> Passedyoucanado.com. You could say.com. We're gonna flip that switch.
Nathan Latka
19:44Okay. Dotcom. Wunderkind.com. Guys, they passed a million bucks in revenue. Call it twelve months in the business, raised a 1.5 seed. They announced scale to over a $100,000,000 in revenue. That was last year. Still now growing this year, 50% year over year. Looking to do strategic round now in the nine figures. We'll see what happens there, supporting over a thousand customers, advertisers, publishers, retailers, e commerce brands, you name it, they're there. Ryan Urban, thanks for taking
20:03us Yeah.
Hiring and Closing Remarks
Ryan Urban
20:04>> And the only thing I never promote what my company does, but we are a great place to work. If you're in New York City, London, Indianapolis, or Austin, like, go to wunderkind.com, check our careers. If you're talented, that's why I do this stuff. Also, a lot of stuff will hire remote roles in in in The US for us, so check us out to Squad Up. That's
Nathan Latka
20:22We'll link to that in the show notes. Squad Up at wunderkind.com. Ryan, thanks for taking the time, man.
Ryan Urban
20:27>> Thanks, Nathan.
Nathan Latka
20:29One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM
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