Pendo invests in product innovation to help companies drive digital adoption, go-to-market and global expansion to meet demand for better digital experiences.
Pendo, a platform that accelerates successful product adoption, today announced highlights from its fiscal year, which ended January 31, 2021. Notable milestones include substantial growth in bookings from new and existing customers, the launch of its Pendo Free product, and global expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. Demand for Pendo increased as companies plan for long-term remote or hybrid work environments; the proliferation of workplace software has made it a necessity for companies to invest in tools to drive software adoption.
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“Despite the many challenges of 2020, the team innovated and hustled to meet growing demand for Pendo as companies’ digital transformation plans accelerated,” said Todd Olson, CEO and co-founder of Pendo. “I’m excited to continue that pace of innovation this year as we launch new products and expand our global footprint.”
Highlights of the fiscal year include:
Revenue and customer growth: Pendo exceeded revenue expectations for the year, with growth in new bookings from traditional enterprises and increased sales from existing customers. The customer count approached 2000, with new customers in the fourth quarter including John Wiley & Sons, Imperfect Foods Inc., Mercury Insurance, Inc., Essity Hygiene and Health AB, Salesloft, Seismic Software, Brainshark, Zix, and Balto Software.
Global expansion: Pendo now employs more than 100 people outside the United States, with growth of its teams in Israel and the United Kingdom and its late 2020 expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. Pendo opened an office in Tokyo in November 2020, and will open an office in Sydney, Australia in early 2021, bringing its total global office count to eight.
Product: Over the fiscal year, Pendo shipped 67 product releases, leading to new products, features and capabilities, including:
- Pendo Free: A free version of Pendo gives companies access to Pendo’s analytics and in-app guidance capabilities, helping product managers answer the common question: Are my customers using my product the way we envisioned they would?
- Core Events: This new set of features lets product teams identify which user actions in their applications are most critical for achieving product adoption and customer retention, and then track user engagement over time.
- Product Engagement Score (PES): Calculated by averaging adoption of Core Events, growth and stickiness, PES offers product leaders a single metric to describe how their product is performing, and it’s now available as a feature inside Pendo. Product leaders can view their score and drill down into each of the three metrics in order to set goals and create action plans to improve product engagement over time.
- Digital Adoption: A suite of solutions that increase employee productivity and satisfaction by accelerating the adoption of software used by internal teams. Companies can boost training efforts, improve user compliance and simplify complex user experiences.
- Adopt for Partners: Pendo’s first OEM product counts 14 partners, with hundreds of their customers using Pendo to deliver customized in-app training to their employees. New partners include Cartegraph, Encode, PrismHR and Wolters Kluwer TeamMate.
- Partners/Integrations: Pendo now integrates with 40 technology partners and counts 20 solutions partners.
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Community: Pendo supported customers and the broader product community through virtual events, education and thought leadership, and a new book:
- Customer events: More than 3,000 people attended the company’s first virtual Pendomonium user conference tripled from past events; another 3,000 attended at least one monthly Pendorama event; and 10 new regional Pendo User Groups formed, bringing the total to 21. Pendo also announced the launch of Pendo Neighborhood, a new platform for Pendo customers that includes education, events and networking opportunities.
- ProductCraft: Traffic to Pendo’s online community for product people jumped 40% during the year as it published a record 220 original articles and hosted nearly 1,200 attendees for its first virtual event.
- The Product-Led Organization: Olson’s first book, “The Product-Led Organization: Drive Growth by Putting Product at the Center of Your Customer Experience,” was named a hot new release in several categories on Amazon after its release by John Wiley & Sons on September 23, 2020.
Headcount: Pendo experienced headcount growth across every function, adding 168 new employees, including 12 executives. In the fourth quarter, Pendo hired Kiyo Takayama as general manager of Pendo Japan, Kelli Dragovich as chief people officer, Pieter Kreuk as vice president of finance, Jennifer “JR” Rettig as vice president of talent, and Jeff Serlin as vice president of revenue operations. Dean Patton was promoted to senior vice president of North America sales and Gary Putlock to vice president of enterprise sales. The company ended the year with 491 employees.
Awards: Pendo won 21 awards over the course of 2020, including #26 on the Inc. 5000 and #54 on Forbes’ Cloud 100 list. The company also earned a spot on the Inc. Best Workplaces list for the third year in a row, and the Triangle Business Journal’s Best Places to Work for the fourth consecutive year.