BOSTON & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Battery Ventures, a global investment firm that backs cloud companies, has for the third year revealed the 25 Highest Rated Public Cloud Computing Companies to Work For, as well as the 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Computing Companies to Work For, with data specifically provided to Battery from Glassdoor.* This year’s lists highlight a number of new, fast-growing cloud firms—including many based outside traditional technology centers like Silicon Valley—as well as publicly traded, business-focused cloud companies that continue to be rewarded for positive company culture.
The companies on both lists represent those where employees report the highest levels of satisfaction at work, according to employee feedback shared on Glassdoor, one of the world’s largest job and recruiting sites.
“Glassdoor is on a mission to help people everywhere find a job and company they love through greater workplace transparency,” said Robert Hohman, Glassdoor co-founder and CEO. “For the third year, Battery Ventures found in an independent study of Glassdoor data the top cloud companies based on employee sentiment. We are proud to help shed light, through our data, on employers that work hard to create and grow strong company cultures. In today’s competitive hiring environment a strong company culture can make all the difference in attracting and retaining top talent.”
This year, marketing-and-sales software company HubSpot took top honors on the public-company list for the second year in a row. But on the private-company list, all of the top five cloud companies are new to the rankings—and five of the top 10 are not based in California. The No. 1 private company, product-experience software provider Pendo.io, is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. Pendo.io was too small, in terms of employee count, to make the list last year.
Additionally, eight of the top 50 private companies from the 2018 list went public or have been acquired in the last year. These companies include PagerDuty, Duo Security, Smartsheet, Pluralsight, Carbon Black, SendGrid, Datorama and TrendKite*.
“These exits underscore the fact that to succeed in the public markets or be acquired today, a cloud company not only has to have a great product, management team and go-to-market strategy—it has to focus on cultivating a great culture as well,” said Neeraj Agrawal, a Battery general partner who specializes in cloud investing. “It’s also telling that it continues to get tougher each year to make our list, showing that companies can’t rest on their laurels when it comes to promoting employee happiness in today’s brisk tech-hiring market.” Agrawal served on the board of Glassdoor before its acquisition by Japan’s Recruit Holdings last year.
“We believe that a great product attracts lots of great customers in the same way that a great culture attracts lots of great employees,” added Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of HubSpot. “From very early on, we've worked hard to make HubSpot a great place to work and I'm happy to see that the employees feel that way. A big thank you to our employees who have shared their perspective of what it's like to work at HubSpot. At the same time, building a great culture is something that is never done, so we'll continue to evolve it and improve it, so it scales with size and time.”
Battery’s Agrawal added that all the innovative companies on both lists this year are powering the trend of businesses increasingly turning to the cloud to run critical technology systems and software, instead of using on-premise systems. The highest-rated companies on both lists sell cloud technology in a range of areas, including sales, marketing, human resources, social-media management and industries like construction and trucking.
To qualify for the list, private cloud companies were required to have more than 200 employees; at least 30 employee reviews on Glassdoor; and have raised funding since July 2015. Public companies required at least $500 million in total enterprise value as of the end of Q1 2019, according to CapIQ. (A more detailed explanation of the list methodology is below.)
The reports also include data on whether employees approve, or disapprove, of their companies’ CEOs and gauge their views on how their companies’ businesses will perform in the next six months (though these additional data points did not impact the overall company ratings or rankings).
For reporting simplicity, the company ratings below are rounded to the nearest tenth of a point, though actual calculations extend beyond the thousandth decimal place to determine rank. The ratings are based on a five-point scale, with 1.0 denoting “very dissatisfied”, 3.0 indicating “OK” and 5.0 signaling “very satisfied.”
Many third-party studies show that companies with high employee satisfaction often post stronger financial performance.
Here are the highest-rated public and private cloud-computing companies to work. Full lists of the 25 Highest Rated Public Cloud Companies and the 50 Highest Rated Private Companies can be found here.
| 25 Highest Rated Public Cloud Companies to Work For (Top 10) | |||||||||||||||
| Rank | Company | Company Rating | CEO Approval Rating | CEO | % Positive Biz Outlook | ||||||||||
| 1 | HubSpot | 4.6 | 97% | Brian Halligan | 90% | ||||||||||
| 2 | The Ultimate Software Group | 4.5 | 97% | Scott Scherr | 90% | ||||||||||
| 3 | Elastic | 4.5 | 97% | Shay Banon | 91% | ||||||||||
| 4 | DocuSign | 4.4 | 97% | Dan Springer | 89% | ||||||||||
| 5 | Guidewire Software | 4.4 | 97% | Marcus Ryu | 88% | ||||||||||
| 6 | Paylocity | 4.4 | 97% | Steve Beauchamp | 88% | ||||||||||
| 7 | Eventbrite | 4.4 | 96% | Julia Hartz | 85% | ||||||||||
| 8 | Zendesk | 4.3 | 95% | Mikkel Svane | 83% | ||||||||||
| 9 | Smartsheet | 4.3 | 98% | Mark Mader | 85% | ||||||||||
| 10 | AppFolio | 4.3 | 99% | Jason Randall | 85% | ||||||||||
| 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Companies to Work For (Top 25) | |||||||||||||||
| Rank | Company | Company Rating | CEO Approval Rating | CEO | % Positive Biz Outlook | ||||||||||
| 1 | Pendo* | 4.9 | 98% | Todd Olson | 98% | ||||||||||
| 2 | Sysdig | 4.9 | 100% | Suresh Vasudevan | 100% | ||||||||||
| 3 | Highspot | 4.9 | 98% | Robert Wahbe | 98% | ||||||||||
| 4 | Instapage | 4.9 | 97% | Tyson Quick | 97% | ||||||||||
| 5 | Dataiku* | 4.9 | 98% | Florian Douetteau | 97% | ||||||||||
| 6 | SalesLoft | 4.9 | 99% | Kyle Porter | 99% | ||||||||||
| 7 | Zoom*** | 4.9 | 99% | Eric Yuan | 97% | ||||||||||
| 8 | Asana | 4.9 | 100% | Dustin Moskovitz | 95% | ||||||||||
| 9 | Sonatype | 4.8 | 100%** | E. Wayne Jackson III | 100% | ||||||||||
| 10 | Sprout Social | 4.8 | 99% | Justyn Howard | 96% | ||||||||||
| 11 | Amplitude* | 4.8 | 100% | Spenser Skates | 98% | ||||||||||
| 12 | Segment | 4.8 | 100% | Peter Reinhardt | 98% | ||||||||||
| 13 | nCino | 4.8 | 99% | Pierre Naude | 97% | ||||||||||
| 14 | Confluent | 4.8 | 100% | Jay Kreps | 98% | ||||||||||
| 15 | KeepTruckin | 4.7 | 98% | Shoaib Makani | 94% | ||||||||||
| 16 | Procore | 4.7 | 99% | Tooey Courtemanche | 93% | ||||||||||
| 17 | Greenhouse Software | 4.7 | 95% | Daniel Chait | 95% | ||||||||||
| 18 | Lucid Software | 4.7 | 100% | Karl Sun | 93% | ||||||||||
| 19 | Auth0 | 4.7 | 100%** | Eugenio Pace | 88% | ||||||||||
| 20 | BounceX* | 4.7 | 96% | Ryan Urban | 91% | ||||||||||
| 21 | Looker | 4.7 | 98% | Frank Bien | 94% | ||||||||||
| 22 | Justworks | 4.7 | 99% | Isaac Oates | 95% | ||||||||||
| 23 | Podium | 4.7 | 95% | Eric Rea | 94% | ||||||||||
| 24 | Outreach | 4.6 | 100%** | Manny Medina | 93% | ||||||||||
| 25 | BambooHR | 4.6 | 97% | Ben Peterson | 91% | ||||||||||
Employees at these highly rated companies commonly mention in online reviews that they enjoy working for mission-driven companies with strong and unique company cultures; employers that embrace and promote transparency; and companies with experienced senior leadership teams who regularly and clearly communicate with employees. Here is a sample of what employees have to say:
- “They care about employees as people, not just part of a balance sheet. They are transparent when something isn't working and how they are going to fix it. People care about their work and their colleagues. People are respectful of one another. (Executives are) very present and engaged no matter what your title is.” – Current employee, HubSpot, marketing
- “The product is incredible. Anyone in software appreciates the concept and the execution. The work environment is super positive and supportive. You win and lose as a team, but your individual success and happiness are held in equal measure. My peers are talented, driven, honest, and brilliant and I am better for them.” – Current employee, Pendo
Glassdoor offers millions of the latest job listings online, paired with 47 million workplace reviews and insights for approximately 900,000 companies around the world. Currently, the average company rating on Glassdoor is 3.41. When an employee submits a company review on Glassdoor, he or she is asked to give their opinion on some of the best reasons to work for their employer (pros), any downsides (cons), and is encouraged to provide advice to management. Employees are also asked to rate how satisfied they are with their employer overall, among several other workplace attributes employees can rate and review.
Methodology: The private- and public-company reports identify cloud computing companies that are highest rated on Glassdoor, based on company ratings shared by employees. To be considered, a cloud company must have received at least 30 company reviews on Glassdoor as of 3/21/19. The private-company report tracks independent, non-public cloud companies that, according to Battery research and data from research service Crunchbase, are based in the U.S.; have a B2B business model; are categorized as SaaS, cloud-computing and/or enterprise software, according to Crunchbase; have more than 200 employees (as of 4/12/2019, according to company data provided to LinkedIn and Battery research); and have raised funding on or after 7/01/2015). The public-company report tracks public cloud companies with a B2B business model that have at least $500 million in total enterprise value as of March 31, 2019, according to CapIQ.
A company’s CEO approval rating and positive business outlook rating—indicating the percentage of employees who believe their employer’s business will get better in the next six months—was not taken into account to determine rank or overall company rating on either list, though we display these added data points for additional insight into each of these companies.
*By a company name denotes a current or past Battery investment. For a full list of all Battery investments and exits, please click here.
**Next to CEO approval rating or positive business outlook rating denotes that data is based on less than 30 ratings.
***Denotes a private company that went public or was acquired after 3/21/19
The information provided is solely intended for the use of entrepreneurs, corporate CEOs and founders regarding Battery Ventures’ potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies. The information is current as of the date it was published. The contents are not intended to be used in the investment decision-making process related to any product or fund managed by Battery Ventures. No assumption should be made that the investments identified above were or will be profitable. It should also not be assumed that recommendations made in the future will be profitable or equal the performance of the companies identified above. Battery Ventures has no obligation to update, modify or amend the content of this report nor notify its readers in the event that any information, opinion, projection, forecast or estimate included, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate.
About Battery Ventures
Battery strives to invest in cutting-edge, category-defining businesses in markets including software and services, Web infrastructure, consumer Internet, mobile and industrial technologies. Founded in 1983, the firm backs companies at stages ranging from seed to private equity and invests globally from offices in Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, London, Israel and New York. Follow the firm on Twitter @BatteryVentures, visit our website at www.battery.com and find a full list of Battery's portfolio companies here.
