About
SugarCRM is an affordable and easy-to-use customer relationship management (CRM) platform, designed to help businesses communicate with prospects, share sales information, close deals, and keep customers happy. Thousands of successful companies use Sugar every day to manage sales, marketing, and support. As an open source, web-based CRM solution, Sugar is easy to customize and adapt to a customer’s changing needs. Designed for small and medium-sized companies, large enterprises and government organizations, Sugar can run in the cloud or on-site.
Thesis
CRM software is a large and rapidly-growing segment of the enterprise software market. SugarCRM can build a large and profitable business by capturing a modest portion of the overall market by offering a differentiated solution that enables customers and their IT solutions providers to customize CRM solutions utilizing an open source platform.
People
SugarCRM has an experienced management team led by CEO Larry Augustin, the founder of open source pioneer VA Linux. The Company was founded in 2004 by John Roberts, Clint Oram, and Jacob Taylor and today has grown into a firm with a sizable client base and 350+ employees.
Key Board Members:
- Mary Coleman (Walden International)
- Mark Leslie (Founder of Veritas Software)
- Brooke Seawell (NEA)
- Josh Stein (DFJ)
Management Team
- Larry Augustin, CEO
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Previously co-founder of VA Linux; holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University
- Andrew Chmyz, CFO
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Previously CFO of CRM vendor Medallia + COO of Concentric Medical
- Clint Oram, CTO
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Founder of SugarCRM; previously with Epiphany, Octane Software + Hewlett Packard
Product
SugarCRM’s product suite is differentiated from competing solutions because it is based on an open source approach and supported by a community of over 30,000 open source developers. Sugar’s platform is currently available in four editions: Sugar Professional, Sugar Corporate, Sugar Enterprise, and Sugar Ultimate. Sugar’s application is accessible via computer, tablet, or mobile phone and can be integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Customers and developers have complete access to the Company’s open source platform, making Sugar an extremely flexible CRM solution. As businesses grow, and as business and social networks evolve, Sugar can easily be modified, extended, and integrated to meet changing customer needs quickly and effectively.
Potential
SugarCRM has the potential to expand its market share in the CRM space because of the ease with which companies can develop, customize, and extend their CRM applications using the Company’s solutions. The size and growth rate of the CRM software market represent a significant opportunity for SugarCRM to build a large and profitable business.
Megatrends
- Internet
- Knowledge
- Convergence
- Brands
How Big Can This Be?
The CRM market was estimated at over $12 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to $22 billion by 2019 (source: www.trefis.com). SugarCRM can become a large company by capturing even a small percentage of the overall CRM market.
Predictability
SugarCRM’s business model is based primarily on subscription pricing and software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery, but the Company offers licenses for on-site deployment as well. The Company’s subscription business model is characterized by a high degree of recurring revenue, which offers a high degree of predictability.
Risks
The most significant risks facing SugarCRM are a highly competitive market and the challenges of managing rapid growth, particularly in hiring and operations.
