Dive Brief:

• SaaS companies took in a median of $35 million in venture capital last year, according to a survey of more than 100 business-to-business software and SaaS companies.
• The largest private companies took in a median of $80 million, reports Information World.
• Growing SaaS companies say they plan to increase head count significantly this year.

Dive Insight:

SaaS companies are growing, both in terms of revenue and personnel, according to the Software and SaaS Industry Report and Benchmarks 2015, compiled by benchmark services company Opexengine and the Software and Information Industry Association.

"This year, both private and public software and SaaS companies recorded strong revenue growth rate overall," the report said. "The leading companies in the 2015 benchmarking -- the top 25 percent by annual revenue growth -- reported topline gains of almost 150 percent [in 2014 compared to 2013]. This same quartile of top producers reported annual revenue gains of 100 percent last year."

Rhianna Collier, vice president of SIAA software and services division, said this year’s report “confirms that the recent financial gains are more than just a short-lived bump.”

Last year, IDC predicted that SaaS enterprise applications will be a $50.8 billion market by 2018. Salesforce.com, ADP, Intuit, Oracle and SAP are the leading worldwide SaaS enterprise applications to date.