The Sucess Story of Zuora and its Original Pitch Deck

Unveiled in 2007, Zuora is a One-of-Its-Kind Recurring Billing & Payment Solution that streamlines inventory operations.

As Per Owler — An American Internet company — Zuora generates $264.8K in revenue per employee and Raised Funding of Approx. $396.5m.

The top competitors of Zuora are NetSuite, SAP, and Amdocs.

The Story Behind Zuora

The idea of Zuora was out-of-the-blues enlightened in Marc Benioff's (CEO of Salesforce) office in 2007. VK Rao — the founder of Zuora — then the senior engineer of WebEx was having a meeting with Salesforce's CEO and CMO.

Salesforce's CMO, Tzuo, commented that billing is complicated for Salesforce, and Rao agreed to this challenge.

He left the meeting with confidence that he could solve this problem.

What Next? Rao invested a lot of time into research for a couple of months and even recruited Cheng Zou — a fellow WebEx engineer — to collaborate on his startup.

The next step was to raise funds. Back then, it wasn't easy to gain investments in enterprise software because it was not consumer-focused.

Rao and Zou successfully set-up a meeting with Peter Fenton (who later became their new partner) — a renowned American venture capitalist.

As per Rao, [Peter] Told ME That It Was One of the Worst Presentations He'd Seen in VC history.

Although Peter loved the idea, he saw a deficiency in Rao's team.

After this, Peter had breakfast with Tien Tzuo — A Taiwanese-born American tech entrepreneur — and discussed Rao's idea.

Peter saw a great CEO in Tzuo with a belief that his experience at Salesforce would be valuable for their startup. Rao and Zou entered the founders' ritual of dating each other.

Tzuo played a significant role in setting up Zuora in January 2008. They met for several whiteboard sessions, over coffee, and double-dates with wives.

The first round of funding to acquire the necessary funds was led by Benchmark — A Venture Capital Firm Based in San Francisco — and they were able to Raise $6.5 Million.

Solving The Billing Problem

Via Giphy

In today's digitalized world, getting the subscription on the front end is a matter of a few clicks.

However, it is a highly complicated process on the back end, similar to designing an entire database.

It's Not Something That a Programmer Can Do Because Our Ambitions Were So Broad. We Wanted to Create a Billing System That Covered Any Industry, says Zou.

Tzuo explains, This Isn't Something Two Kids From Y Combinator Can do….if You Think of Salesforce as the CRM for Every Industry and Webex as Web Conferencing for Any Industry, We Wanted to Be Cloud-Based Billing for everyone.

Rao and the team took six months to convert the prototype into a Cloud-Based Subscription Platform.

The demand for Zuora upsurge quickly after its launch, and word-of-mouth had a significant part in this.

In 2009, the revenue generated by Zuora tripled.

The company's valuation was twice when Redpoint — an American venture capital firm — led their funding round in 2010, acquiring $20 million.

Index Ventures participated in the Series D funding round of Zuora a year later.

The company used the funds to strengthen its foothold across the globe, especially Europe and Australia.

Zuora raised $50 million from its last financing round in 2013.

The big talking of Zuora's success story is their investor presentations that have always helped to influence angel investors and venture capitalists.

In this article, we will be reviewing one of the most famous pitch decks designed and developed by Zuora.

So, Let's Scroll Down to Learn More About the Essential Slides.

Click Here to Explore World's Largest Collection of Pitch Decks

Slide 1: The Cover Slide

The first slide of the Zuora pitch deck is straightforward in terms of design and text.

The highly-relevant image on the right side is eye-catching and connects with the audience.

The title in Bold, "Zuora Investor Funding Elevator Pitch Deck," is mentioned on the slide.

The name of the presentation host, Tien Tzuo — CEO & Founder is there on the pitch deck.

The tagline "Turning Customers Into Subscribers" has a easy-to-read font size.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Slide 2: The Problem Statement

The problem slide in the Zuora pitch deck describes their potential customer's pain points. Further, this illustrates the opportunity the startup has.

Zuora clearly mentions the shift is from Products to Relationships.

The slide has a mapping diagram that exhibits the shift from Products in the 1970s to Relationships Centric in today's time.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Slide 3: Market Demand

Zuora's market demand slide has a clear structure.

Investors will trust a startup only when the founder illustrates plenty of market opportunities.

On their market demand slide, Zuora presents impressive statistics to convince investors.

These numbers are obtained from in-depth market research and backed by legit sources.

For instance, 50% of people in France are moving away from traditional ownership, 80% of customers are demanding new consumption models, and 80% of the German companies have faced subscription troubles.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Slide 4: Industries That Are Shifting Towards New Business Model

Taking from the previous slide to make inventors believe that Zuora's idea is a revolution, they, on a broader term, claim that "Every Industry is Shifting."

They suggest that the leaders are adapting to new business models.

The industry shifted towards new business models, including Consumer Goods, Education, High-Tech, Communication, IT, Media, Healthcare, and Cloud Services.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Slide 5: Industry Trends

The slide provides a glimpse of the industry trends, such as Shifting From Product-Based Services to Subscription-Based Services.

The angel investors find the right-hand side key takeaway section pretty interesting.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Slide 6: New Ways of Thinking

The slide sheds light on the New Ways of Thinking that different companies embrace.

Nowadays, companies are providing services to their customers through new ways, which are focused more on the new subscription-based ecosystem.

The stunning visual difference between the traditional and new business model efficiently conveys the company's core message to the investors.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Slide 7: Product Details

The product details slide in the Zuora funding elevator deck is similar to the solution slide.

Zuora has used this slide to show their product in detail, highlighting its essential features. They have used relevant icons to make the headings easy to interpret.

On the right-hand side, they included a section that rounded up the key benefits of the Zuora platform.

These comprise Integration, Compliance, Extensibility, Security, Reliability, and Scalability.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Slide 8: Client Testimonials

The client testimonial slide in the Zuora pitch deck features the quote from the customer aligned with their brief details in a clean, straightforward manner.

These testimonials are a persuasive marketing tool that plays a crucial role in showcasing the authentic experiences of satisfied customers. And, these can help your prospective investors make the final decision.

Download Zuora Original Pitch Deck

Wrapping Up

Whether you are an upcoming startup or a fortune 500 company pitching your idea, we at SlideTeam offer full-suite investor presentation design solutions at the most affordable prices.

We aim to inspire and persuade your audience through a professional pitch deck tailored to your specific requirements.

I was in a time bind and needed a quick-fix and answer. Ashley jumped on the chat line with me and solved my problem immediately! Great job, Slideteam! Great job Ashley!! - Debbie Griffith