Q&A with CData CFO Matt Webb: Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and Beyond
This week, CData was proud to announce that we have been included on the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ list. CData has grown 294% in revenue in the last three years, leading Deloitte to recognize our organization in its 28th annual ranking of the fastest-growing North American companies.
We chatted with CData CFO Matt Webb to get the inside scoop behind our remarkable growth and our dedication to helping our customers drive meaningful business results with their data.
1. Can you give us a bit of background on your role here at CData?
Webb: I joined the company about a year and a half ago as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). I oversee everything from the financial health and financial planning of the business to helping support our go-to-market strategy and helping to position the business operationally to grow and scale. I focus heavily on our operations – I’m deeply involved in our sales processes, both in our direct and OEM businesses.
On our direct sales, we spend a lot of time studying which customers are using which products and finding opportunities to expand those relationships. On the OEM side, we work to align what our OEM partners are looking to do with their product strategy with regards to data connectivity, and arrange a mutually beneficial agreement for long-term success with our partners. Both of these center around bringing world-class, real-time data connectivity to the entire market and across the growing number of business platforms that are in the market.
2. Ranking on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 is no easy feat. What has brought CData to this accomplishment?
Webb: First, I want to say congratulations to our entire CData team for reaching this goal. It is a testament to the hard work and dedication of every employee here that we can gain this industry recognition.
We have two sources of revenue that have driven this tremendous growth over the years. Our bread and butter, and the thing that CData is most known for, is our direct B2B business on the connectivity side. Our success there has led us to be able to build our OEM business, where major ISVs like Google and Tableau have embedded our connectivity into their own platforms.
On our direct side, we have built relationships with thousands of customers who are looking to easily and quickly connect their systems without the development time and resources necessary to build and maintain custom integrations. We provide standardized, plug-and-play data drivers that solve data challenges across industries and use cases. That success has allowed us to get recognition from many large platform players that want to leverage our real-time connectivity inside their platforms to pass the same capabilities to their customers.
So at its core, our growth and success is due to the fact that our data connectivity platform is solving a critical business problem that is shared across all industries and verticals, and we’re doing it in a thoughtful, scalable way and on a level that nobody else has. That's how we got here, and that’s how we’re going to continue to deliver for our customers and therefore, continue on our path of long-term sustainable growth well into the future.
3. How does our partnership with our investors contribute to our business growth?
Webb: Beginning in 2020, we began our partnership with Updata, an investment firm focused on B2B technology, to support our rapid growth. In March 2020, they led a Series A investment round, followed soon after by a larger Series B investment in 2021. Updata is very discerning in choosing the organizations with whom they partner, so we're excited to be one of them.
This recognition is a milestone for CData and shows that our partnership with Updata is bearing fruit. They are actively working to help support us in accelerating our revenue growth trajectory as we move into the future. It is not just about growing over 200%+ in a few years, and though we have done that, we believe we can reshape the data management software industry by being a foundational piece in the software stack. I believe Updata sees the potential for CData’s terrific product, market position, and customer base to sustain meaningful growth many years into the future. That’s what we’re striving for – the place to go for real-time data connectivity.
CData is shooting to be among those impressive businesses that can achieve a lasting level of industry-recognized growth.
– Matt Webb, CData CFO
4. Where do you see opportunities to continue this trend of innovation and growth?
Webb: Our platform offers a multitude of different connectivity solutions and technologies, and some of our offerings are positioned in markets with large, well-established players. But we’re doing things differently – creating simpler, more accessible ways to integrate data without the heavy lift or investment.
We're particularly excited about some of our newest products, like the CData Connect Cloud. We have an amazing opportunity to define and own the Data Connectivity as a Service space, and we’re just getting started.
5. What upcoming initiatives excite you in the coming year for CData?
Webb: We’re working towards helping the market understand how we're different, and how we can provide more access to more data in more places than anyone else out there. And I think it'll help our existing customers to see that we can support them in bigger and broader ways. We've got a great customer base, and we’re always working to give them the solutions they need and want.
When somebody comes to us with a connectivity problem, they gain this nice, easy-lift solution to go in and solve it. But it just can't end there. CData’s focus on real-time connectivity is going to be a huge initiative to help the market see how much more they can accomplish with their data.
At the end of the day, CData is living a really simple story: put the right products out in the market, and enable our users to do their work more efficiently to drive positive business outcomes. I’m looking forward to the coming months and years as we continue on this track of continued execution and solid sustainable growth — and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon.
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Interested to learn more? Reach out to one of our data experts today to discover what CData’s real-time connectivity solutions can do for you.
