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The latest from the World of Zuora

Press Releases

Subscription Billing Leader Zuora Named to the AlwaysOn Global 250 along with Facebook, Linkedin and Pandora

Zuora recognized for leadership amongst peers and its game-changing approach

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — July 28, 2010 — Zuora, the company that defined and continues to lead the subscription billing industry, today announced that it has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners. Inclusion in the AlwaysOn Global 250 signifies leadership amongst its peers and game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players in the global technology sector. Zuora was specially selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team and industry experts spanning the globe based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.

“Cloud computing and SaaS solutions have changed the enterprise computing business, and Zuora is key to monetizing these offerings and helping subscription to be more successful and more profitable,” said Tien Tzuo, CEO at Zuora. “Our ongoing innovation, key partnerships with companies such as Microsoft, Rackspace and NetSuite will enable us to continue to be the definitive leader in subscription billing.”

“After examining the companies that are on the AO Global 250 list, it’s obvious that innovation is not only alive and well in the Global Silicon Valley, it’s accelerating in economic power and scope.” says Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. “Zuora represents one of the highest-growth opportunities in the private company marketplace.”

The AlwaysOn Global 250 winners were selected from among thousands of domestic and international technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists, and industry insiders. The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2010 list.

A full list of all the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners can be found on the AlwaysOn website at: https://www.aonetwork.com/AOStory/Announcing-2010-AlwaysOn-Global-250.

About Zuora, Inc.

Zuora’s subscription billing and commerce platform changes the way subscription businesses manage and sell to customers, allowing them to bring new products to market in less time, with more flexibility and less hassle. Zuora customers are up and running within 90 days and often recognize 200% ROI within weeks. Zuora is built from the ground up by SaaS industry visionaries and veterans from salesforce.com, WebEx, Accenture, Google, eBay, Oracle and Vitria. Zuora customers include Reed Business Information, Coremetrics, InsideView, Marketo, Ricoh, Box.net, Xactly, HD Cloud, and Cloud Central.

About AlwaysOn

AlwaysOn is the leading business media brand networking the Global Silicon Valley. AlwaysOn helped ignite the social media revolution in early 2003 when it launched the AlwaysOn network. In 2004, it became the first media brand to socially network its online readers and event attendees. AlwaysOn’s preeminent executive event series includes the Summit at Stanford, OnMedia, OnHollywood, Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic, OnDemand, Venture Summit Silicon Valley, Venture Summit East, GoingGreen Silicon Valley, and GoingGreen East. The AlwaysOn network and live event series continue to lead the industry by empowering its readers, event participants, sponsors, and advertisers like no other media brand.

October 10, 2014

Telecom Provider Open Range Launches Large-Scale Subscription Billing Solution with Zuora in Less Than 100 Days

Zuora Brings Unprecedented Real-Time Flexibility to Telecom Subscription Billing

Redwood Shores, CA – August 12, 2010 — Zuora, the company that defined and continues to lead the subscription billing industry, announced the company has successfully implemented a subscription billing platform for Open Range Communications, one of the nation’s hottest wireless broadband providers in under 100 days.

Traditional telecom billing systems can take years and millions of dollars to implement. In this case, Open Range required its new telecom billing system to integrate with seven different systems and provide the flexibility to change pricing across a broad range of customer communities in 17 states. Open Range selected Zuora to deliver real-time flexibility to support myriad pricing packages and promotions while scaling to support Open Range’s fast-growing business. Completed in less than 100 days, the implementation positions Zuora as the clear leader in subscription billing for next-generation telco business models.

While providers throughout the telecom industry face a critical need to increase the flexibility and agility of their billing systems, this requirement was mission critical for Open Range. Backed with $267 million from the Department of Agriculture and $100 million from One Equity Partners, the private equity arm of JPMorgan Chase, the company has launched an aggressive initiative to bring wireless high-speed Internet access to hundreds of un-served and under-served rural communities across America.

As it works to connect 6 million customers in 546 communities, Open Range needed to tailor a large number of pricing packages and promotions to fit the requirements of different areas, then sign customers in real-time via call center, online self-service, and door-to-door sales. In addition to billing by metered usage across a diverse and ever-changing spectrum of rate plans, Open Range must also perform complex tax calculations reflecting different tariffs for VoIP, international calls, and Internet access.

“As a next-generation provider, we need to be able to make changes at the speed of today’s fast-moving telecom marketplace while supporting subscription agreements as diverse as the needs of our customers,” said Q Saeed, Executive Vice President, Business Operations and Corporate Development at Open Range Communications Inc. “Zuora made it possible for us to bring modified pricing plans to market quickly, bill against them in real-time, and scale easily to keep pace with our rapid growth in the months and years ahead.”

Zuora completed its implementation of Open Range’s new billing platform in under 100 days even though the project had high degree of complexity with multiple integration points throughout company’s ecosystem, including:

ERP general ledger,
Salesforce.com customer and partner portal,
Vertex tax solution,
Paymentech credit card processing, and
Allianza Telecom telco switch.

The system has been fully operational since going live in June.

“Time is of the essence as we work to hit our go-to-market launch dates,” said Saeed. “Zuora not only gave us exactly the capabilities we need to fully enable our business model, but did it in a fraction of the time of a traditional enterprise platform.”

“Telecom billing is a multi-billion dollar market traditionally dominated by expensive systems that take years and years to deploy”, said Zuora founder and CEO Tien Tzuo. “Our work with Open Range, where we tackled their complex telecom billing needs — and brought them live in 100 days — this truly shows the maturity and scalability of Zuora’s platform, and how much it truly is a game changer.”

About Zuora, Inc.

To learn more about Zuora, please visit www.zuora.com.

About Open Range

Open Range is a broadband wireless provider using WiMAX technology to deliver wireless broadband to un-served and underserved rural American communities. Open Range plans to deliver portable and eventually mobile voice and Internet services to customers within its robust WiMAX footprint. Within the next five years, Open Range intends to serve 546 communities, making its services initially available to approximately six million people. Open Range’s wireless broadband network solution will connect customers through licensed spectrum, enabling communities to improve safety, economic growth, education, and quality of life and to remain competitive in the age of constant communications. For more information, visit www.openrangecomm.com.

October 10, 2014

Zuora's August '10 Release gives better control and improved transactional support and reporting

New features enhance configurability, usability, accounting reconciliation and reporting

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — August 23, 2010 — Over the last 18 months, Zuora has committed to a monthly new feature release schedule that delivers an unprecedented pace of innovation, even by SaaS standards. Each of these 18 monthly releases has delivered major updates to Zuora’s entire product line, including:

Z-Billing, the first billing application designed specifically for subscription businesses
Z-Payments, a complete payment solution built for subscription businesses
Z-Force, a quoting, renewal management, and a 360 degree customer view built 100% natively on top of Force.com
Z-Commerce, the developer platform available at developer.zuora.com.

New Feature Highlights:

Custom Invoice Item Sorting: Invoices can have a huge effect on customer satisfaction and collections rates. With this release, Zoura has enhanced our invoice templates to allow much greater control over the sorting of invoice items.
Improved Support for Evergreen Subscriptions: Many of Zuora’s customers offer “evergreen” subscriptions that never expire unless they are explicitly cancelled. The August ’10 release now includes evergreen subscription support — giving a low-touch and low-maintenance way of creating and managing these offers.
Payment Operations – Invoice Item Adjustment: As part of our ongoing Payment Operations initiative, Zuora is making the process of adjusting invoices for things like customer credits easier to enter and reconcile with accounting systems. Supplementing our existing Invoice Adjustments functionality, adjustments can now be explicitly made to specific line items.
Custom Fields on Refunds: This new feature tracks why and how refunds are happening — helping our customers easily spot trends, segment their refund activity, and optimize operations.

What our Customer Community is saying:

“We have complex pricing so our invoices show a lot of different charges. It’s great that we can sort these charges by product, price plan and service periods in any order we like,” said Jessica Huber, Corporate Controller at LiveOffice. “It is important to present invoices to our customers in a way that they prefer and understand.”

“We offer email marketing services and these subscriptions never expire,” said Patrick Block, Finance Manager at Emma. “Once I have the order in, I never have to worry about restarting these subscriptions because Zuora takes care of it all for me.”

“With each release, we see more and more custom fields available for use. It’s nice that we can now tag all refunds with a reason code so that we can quickly determine why and where we are doing most of our refunds, ” said Kathleen Lim, Billing Operations and Collections Manager for Box.net.

About Zuora, Inc.

Zuora’s subscription billing and commerce platform changes the way subscription businesses manage and sell to customers, allowing them to bring new products to market in less time, with more flexibility and less hassle. Zuora customers are up and running within 30 to 90 days and often recognize 200% ROI within weeks. Zuora is built from the ground up by SaaS industry visionaries and veterans from salesforce.com, WebEx, Accenture, Google, eBay, Oracle and Vitria. Zuora customers include Reed Business Information, Coremetrics, InsideView, Marketo, Ricoh, Pandora, Box.net, Xactly, HD Cloud, and Cloud Central.

October 10, 2014

Zuora Announces Opening of European Office to Meet Growing Worldwide Demand

Momentum Continues for Leading Subscription Billing Company

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — August 27, 2010 — Zuora, the subscription billing leader, today announced their plan to open a new office in London to support its growing customer base throughout Europe. The office will be the base for European Operations as well as the ten new staff Zuora plans to hire for the region this year. With operations in the US, Asia and Europe, Zuora is now open for business around the globe, 24 hours a day.

This global expansion is the latest in a series of moves from Zuora that solidify its leadership position, including:

the signing of more than $1 Billion in contracted subscription revenue. This is of particular note in light of Gartner’s estimate that SaaS billing industry-wide would reach $7.5 billion in 2009, demonstrating Zuora’s commanding share of this booming market.
an ever-growing list of successful customer deployments delivered in record time. Most recently, Zuora announced it completed its implementation of Open Range’s complex new telecom billing platform in under 100 days. Zuora integrated with seven different systems to provide Open Range the flexibility to easily change pricing across customer communities in 17 states.
a burgeoning partner ecosystem for delivering best-of-breed solutions to customers. Zuora recently announced preferred partnership status with NetSuite, whereby the companies will jointly develop and offer combined solutions to price, meter and bill for subscription- and usage-based products.

European Companies Applaud Zuora’s Move to Support Customers with Local Presence

Zuora’s customers in Europe span a host of verticals, including telecom, media and more, and deliver cloud and software-as-a-service solutions. These companies are speaking out to praise the new local office:

SocialGo, London: “It’s exciting to see Zuora expanding at a time when so many companies are still holding back. This is a testament to the value Zuora delivers and an indicator that the company will continue to lead the subscription billing market,” commented Dominic Wheatley, Founder at SocialGo.
IC&S, Netherlands: “Many U.S.-based companies take years to develop a European office. Zuora’s investment in serving the region will pay off not only for Zuora but its customers as well,” commented Eelco van Beek, CEO at IC&S, which serves the largest beverage company and the largest insurance company in Europe.
Moviestorm, United Kingdom: “Zuora is the only company that can deliver such value to cloud-based companies,” said Jeff Zie, CEO of Moviestorm, a leading UK based animation services provider. “We’re pleased they’re moving into the European market with a new office and expanded staff.”
Reed Business Information, London: “Zuora’s investment in Europe gives us greater confidence that we made the right choice. We know they’re committed not only to being the leader in subscription billing but also committed to the success of their European customers,” said Mary Collerton, Corporate Solutions Director at Reed Business Information in the UK.

Excited about the market opportunity, Zuora’s partners and systems integrators are also speaking out in praise of Zuora’s European Operations:

NetSuite: “Zuora is a preferred NetSuite partner, and together we deliver ideal solutions that will help European companies make the most of their cloud computing and SaaS businesses,” said Steve Sydes, NetSuite Managing Director for EMEA. “We’re happy to work with Zuora through their European office to serve this important customer base.”
OpSource: “OpSource and Zuora have partnered to deliver joint solutions to SaaS ISVs. Our Managed Hosting customers around the world are able to leverage Zuora’s billing platform to launch new applications or campaigns quickly and scale,” said Keao Caindec, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at OpSource. “Our EMEA teams are looking forward to working with Zuora as they expand into Europe.”
Astadia: “Many of our clients need flexible packaging and pricing solutions, and Zuora is the right solution,” said Steve Horwitz, CEO of Astadia. “Zuora’s London office will benefit our European clients, and we look forward to working with Zuora’s growing customer base across Europe.”

“We’re seeing unprecedented demand from European SaaS, media, cloud and telecom providers who are innovators in the global subscription economy,” said Shawn Price, Zuora’s President. “Many of our European customers are far ahead of their competitors in other geographies in recognizing the huge strategic advantage of moving to a subscription pricing model. We are delighted to be partnering with such innovative customers.”

“Both cloud computing and software-as-a-service are experiencing explosive growth, and European companies are certainly helping to drive this change,” said Denis Pombriant, Beagle Research. “Zuora’s move to establish a local European presence is a smart move, and the timing is right. We expect the market to reach $45 billion by 2015.”

About Zuora, Inc.

October 10, 2014

Zuora's September '10 release: 19 consecutive months of innovation from the leader in Subscription Billing

Release improves Invoice Adjustments, User Interface & Integration

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — September 28, 2010 — For more than 18 months, Zuora has committed to a monthly new feature release schedule that delivers an unprecedented pace of innovation, even by SaaS standards. Each of these monthly releases has delivered major updates to Zuora’s entire product line, including:

Z-Billing, the first billing application designed specifically for subscription businesses

Z-Payments, a complete payment solution built for subscription businesses

Z-Force, a quoting, renewal management, and a 360 degree customer view built 100% natively on top of Force.com

Z-Commerce, the developer platform available at developer.zuora.com.

With this release, we’re overhauling our existing Invoice Adjustment capabilities to improve usability, simplify integration with accounting and other systems, and allow for easier reporting. Major changes we’re making in this release include:

New Feature Highlights:

Improved User Interface: Users who enter day-to-day transactions are typically not accountants, although these transactions have a major impact on accounting and financial reporting. By improving the user interface we reduce data entry errors and accelerate integration with accounting systems.
New API: New documentation allows programmatic creation of Invoice Adjustments using the Z-Commerce Platform. This will be useful for data migrations, integrations, as well as for companies that might have customized workflows or policies around their adjustments and credits.

What our Customer Community is saying:

“Minimizing data entry errors in a billing system is key to keeping our customers happy,” said Tom McGlynn, CEO at Focus-N-Fly. “Zuora’s recent redesign of their user interface makes it clear that they understand the operational subtleties of keeping a mission critical billing system running smoothly.”

“I am always impressed by the depth & breadth of Zuora’s API. It’s like the Zuora development team puts as much effort into making their API developer-friend as they put into making their UI user-friendly,” said Jeff Haynie, CEO at Appcelerator. “The latest enhancements to the Invoice Adjustment API is further proof that when it comes to API development, Zuora really understands what developers need.”

About Zuora, Inc.

Zuora’s subscription billing and commerce platform change the way subscription businesses manage and sell to customers, allowing them to bring new products to market in less time, with more flexibility and less hassle. Zuora customers are up and running within 30 to 90 days and often recognize 200% ROI within weeks. Zuora is built from the ground up by SaaS industry visionaries and veterans from salesforce.com, WebEx, Accenture, Google, eBay, Oracle and Vitria. Zuora customers include Reed Business Information, Coremetrics, InsideView, Marketo, Ricoh, Pandora, Box.net, Xactly, and Cloud Central.

October 10, 2014

IDC Names Zuora to 2010 List of Innovative Companies to Watch

Redwood City, CA — September 29, 2010

Company News

Zuora, the subscription billing leader, has been selected by International Data Corporation (IDC) as one of ten companies highlighted in a new report entitled “Innovative Software Companies Under $100M to Watch” for 2010.
IDC has highlighted Zuora as exemplifying vision and innovation in a key industry trend defined as “Enterprise software application companies with innovative go to market strategies and/or unique business models including unique channel partner models, cloudsourcing models and software within a service offerings.”

Zuora Delivers Strategic Value to Capture Vast Market Opportunity

Zuora was founded in 2007 to address the needs of the new Subscription Economy. Today, companies and consumers alike are moving away from buying products — And dealing with the hassles of ownership — to subscribing to services. Saas, cloud, digital media, consumer Internet, and mobile services are all industries being reshaped by this trend. Business like Pandora, Zipcar and Netflix are high profile examples of how “ownership” as a concept is becoming outdated.
But as companies of all sizes join the Subscription Economy, they require a solution that allows for sophisticated billing structures that are flexible enough to adapt quickly as customer needs change.
After raising $21.5 million from Benchmark Capital and private investors including Salesforce.com’s founder and CEO Marc Benioff, Zuora has been on a torrid growth path. In the first quarter of 2010 alone, Zuora had contracted $1 billion in annual invoice volume and achieved cash flow positive operations.
At the heart of Zuora’s ability to rise up to meet the demands of the Subscription Economy is its aggressive focus on innovation. Unlike other software companies who innovate on a quarterly or semi-annual basis, Zuora immediately incorporates customer needs and feedback, releasing new versions of its solutions on a monthly basis — A key driver for new business and expanded presence with existing customers.

Commentary

“Business has changed. The social web, cloud delivery models, and an increased use of mobile in the enterprise are all impacting businesses and the enterprise application software needed to facilitate business change,” said Michael Fauscette, group vice president, Software Business Solutions, IDC. “Contributing to much needed innovation in enterprise software is a group of small companies with the vision and technology to help businesses deal more effectively with the new business environment.”
“Addressing the needs of the Subscription Economy is no small challenge, and only by building an organization that is maniacally focused on constant, continuous innovation are we able to rise meet that challenge,” said Zuora co-founder and CEO Tien Tzuo. “We are thrilled that IDC has recognized our drive and fierce level of commitment to innovate.”

Resources

Innovative Software Companies Under $100M to Watch, 2010

About IDC’s “Innovative Companies Under $100M To Watch”

IDC’s “Innovative Companies Under $100M to Watch” reports are a qualitative evaluation of a set of vendors within a specific market — they are not a stack ranking nor do they represent an exhaustive evaluation of all companies in a segment or a comparative ranking of the companies in the report. IDC solicited entries from vendors of less than $100 million that exemplify specific key trends (selected by analysts) that are driving change in a specific software market. Vendors submitted case studies that exemplified one of the trends used as the basis for the award. These case studies were evaluated individually and independently by related market analysts across several pre-determined criteria. The case studies submitted for review had to demonstrate that the technology was available, able to be implemented, and provided real-world benefits to the customer.

About Zuora, Inc.

Zuora’s subscription billing and commerce platform changes the way subscription businesses manage and sell to customers, allowing them to bring new products to market in less time, with more flexibility and less hassle. Zuora customers are up and running within 90 days and often recognize 200% ROI within weeks. Zuora is built from the ground up by SaaS industry visionaries and veterans from salesforce.com, WebEx, Accenture, Google, eBay, Oracle and Vitria. Zuora customers include Reed Business Information, Coremetrics, InsideView, Marketo, Open Range Communications, Box.net, Xactly, and Cloud Central.

October 10, 2014

Ning Chooses Zuora to Power Subscription Services and Enable Premium Network Model

Zuora enables social network leader to switch to a fee-based, subscription model in 45 days

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — October 5, 2010 — Zuora, the company that defined and leads the subscription billing industry, today announced that it has successfully implemented its SaaS billing solution in under 45 days for Ning, the leading platform for creating your own social network. This rapid implementation helped Ning execute on one of the most closely watched shift to a paid subscription revenue model in the technology industry. As part of this move, Ning tripled its paying user-base since going live with Zuora’s Z-Commerce billing solution on July 20th.

“Ning is going through an exciting transition in our business, and to date our main focus has been on delivering features and functionality that our communities most want,” said Jason Rosenthal, CEO, Ning. “By offering us a billing platform that was risk-free, and easy to deploy, Zuora freed us to focus our energies on launching our new plans; Ning Mini, Plus and Pro, and supporting our customers in their conversion activities instead of spending months working out a billing system flexible enough to meet our needs.”

As part of the change in business strategy, Ning required a billing and subscription management platform to reach its deadline and provide its customers with more of the easy-to-use, advanced features that enhance their user experience.

Ning selected Zuora for its expertise in subscription management and proven experience in delivering mission-critical recurring billing systems. With Zuora, Ning has been able to remain focused on its core competency in building custom social networks, and retain best-in-class features to support its growing user base and product suite. Zuora gave Ning the flexibility to add new products, services and promotions, easily modify or adjust rate plans, making it an ideal partner during this rollout. Ning also knew that the flexibility of the Z-Commerce platform could meet its aggressive go-to-market goals and grow with the evolving needs of Network Creators.

Zuora completed its implementation of Ning’s new billing platform on time, under an aggressive timeline, within a complex infrastructure that included multiple integration points in the company’s ecosystem. This integration enables Ning to:

connect the sales and finance departments in one system;
allow the sales team to view all aspects of customer base and recommend new offerings on a real time basis; and
identify upcoming renewals, ensure up to date credit card information, and avoid unnecessary charges to increase overall customer satisfaction.

“Ning is now THE model for all other freemium providers to follow,” said Zuora co-founder and CEO Tien Tzuo. “More and more, customers are adapting to subscription models to access the products and solutions that they depend on. While some wring their hands over the ‘Pandora’s Box’ of pay walls, companies like Ning have positioned themselves for dynamic growth.”

About Zuora, Inc.

To learn more about Zuora, please visit www.zuora.com.

October 10, 2014

Zuora Powers Subscription Billing for Microsoft Windows Azure and BizSpark One partner sharpcloud in Three Weeks

Zuora enables ISV to rapidly deploy, meter, price, and bill for Windows Azure Platform cloud solution

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Microsoft VC Summit — October 25, 2010

Company News

Zuora, the leader in subscription billing, today announced that sharpcloud has successfully implemented the Zuora Z-Commerce for the Cloud platform in 20 days. sharpcloud provides visual, social roadmapping which is used by customers to manage knowledge and networks around their strategic planning and innovation programs. sharpcloud is developed and hosted on Windows Azure.
sharpcloud leveraged Windows Azure’s platform and tools to bring their solution to life, and quickly set about the task of monetizing, namely, enabling sharpcloud for subscriptions. It quickly became clear that building such a complicated solution in-house was not an option.
Through the Microsoft Windows Azure and BizSpark One programs, sharpcloud was able to get started quickly with the Zuora team, which was already well versed and integrated into the Windows Azure ecosystem.
sharpcloud is now using Zuora to enable billing, payments and subscription management for its Windows Azure-based application, specifically:
- Multiple pricing plans to sell to individuals and businesses
- Support for multiple currencies — GBP, USD, and Euros
- Online commerce capabilities
- Support for credit cards; PCI compliance
- Seamless integration to PayPal for payment processing
- A platform to handle subscription orders from different partners, including Fujitsu
sharpcloud deployed the Zuora Toolkit for Windows Azure to dramatically accelerate time-to-market and automate the pricing and web orders for its Windows Azure platform cloud-based application with seamless integration to PayPal.

Commentary

“Microsoft and BizSparkOne have given us the tools, platform and program to research, develop and release to web our social business application,” said Sarim Khan, CEO and Co-Founder, sharpcloud. “Zuora has filled the missing link by enabling billing, payments and subscription management for our application, giving us the flexibility to price and package and in the future expand to new markets.”
“Cloud computing has dramatically improved the way that ISVs can develop, deliver and support innovative business solutions,” said Michael Maggs, senior director, Windows Azure partner strategy at Microsoft. “Zuora enables Windows Azure developers to rapidly monetize those applications with the right billing infrastructure so they can spend more effort on building successful cloud businesses.”
“Billing is the lifeblood of ISVs in the cloud, and Zuora is the leader in helping companies like sharpcloud rapidly monetize their solutions on Windows Azure,” said Shawn Price, president at Zuora. “Zuora is committed to working closely with Microsoft to deliver on the cloud commerce capabilities that the more than 10,000 Windows Azure developers and customers require.”

Enabling the Cloud Computing Business Model on Windows Azure

Based on Zuora’s industry-leading on-demand subscription billing and commerce platform, Z-Commerce for the Cloud enables the new business models introduced by cloud computing such as usage and pay-as-you-go pricing as their existing infrastructures were built for one-time and perpetual pricing models. Prior to Zuora, cloud providers and ISVs were could not deliver on the need to meter, price, and bill for cloud services — the heart of the new cloud business model.
At this week’s Microsoft VC Summit, Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo will be presenting a session that illustrates this shift entitled “Azure: Microsoft Cloud Computing Strategy – How to Successfully Build, Deploy and Monetize the Windows Azure Platform” that will describe how cloud computing is creating significant opportunities for ISVs to build and monetize a range of new applications with Zuora and Microsoft technologies.

Zuora Toolkit for Windows Azure

To drive success and adoption for the Windows Azure ecosystem, Zuora has delivered the Zuora Toolkit for Windows Azure in conjuncture with Microsoft to enable developers and ISVs to easily automate commerce from within their Windows Azure application and/or website in a matter of minutes. With the Zuora Toolkit for Windows Azure, developers and ISVs can:
- create flexible price plans and packages;
- support usage and pay-as-you-go pricing models;
- initiate a subscription order online;
- accept credit cards with PCI Level 1 compliance; and
- manage the customers, recurring subscriptions, and invoicing.
The Zuora Toolkit for Windows Azure can be accessed at https://developer.zuora.com/. Zuora is also providing a Z-Commerce for the Cloud code sample for developers to embed in their cloud solutions
Resources

Zuora-sharpcloud- Windows Azure case study

About Zuora, Inc.

About sharpcloud

sharpcloud was founded on a revolutionary idea: to provide a visually appealing user experience to communities involved in the process of managing knowledge and networks around strategy and innovation. We provide enterprise communities with all the best elements of social networking, visual analytics and business intelligence in a simple to use and share application and is of value to both public and private user communities.

Typical client & partner user cases for sharpcloud include;
– Strategic presentations & planning
– Technology roadmapping
– Open innovation and new product development
– Partnership, bid, major accounts, and contracts management
– Public crowdsourcing

Delivered in-browser via Silverlight, sharpcloud is a Microsoft Bizspark One partner and Windows Azure Front Runner. For more information visit www.sharpcloud.com (twitter: @sharpcloud)

October 10, 2014

Zuora to Offer Subscription Billing for Launch of PayPal Apps

Zuora, PayPal X and Microsoft to help developers monetize the “App Economy”

INNOVATE 2010, SAN FRANCISCO — Oct. 26, 2010

Company News

Zuora, the leader in subscription billing, today announced its app is being included in the launch of the PayPal Apps beta at Innovate 2010.
PayPal Apps provides third-party developers with a great new way to provide services to PayPal customers by embedding apps directly into PayPal’s Web and mobile presence.
Zuora is showcasing its commitment to helping application developers monetize their offerings. At Innovate, Zuora will highlight sharpcloud, a customer that has built its application on the Windows Azure platform, and is now able to capitalize on that development effort by using PayPal for payment processing and Zuora for subscription billing.

Promoting the App Economy

A thriving and fast-growing network of application marketplaces, estimated at $1 billion today and projected to reach $4 billion by 2012, has created powerful opportunities for developers of all sizes through low barriers to entry, easily available reach, and broad-based platforms such as Windows Azure, Google, Saleforce.com, Apple, RIM, Yahoo!, Facebook, and PayPal.
However, monetizing those apps — collecting payment on a recurring basis and accurately provisioning access for customers — has remained a key challenge. Most app marketplaces only let developers choose from one-time payments, mechanisms oriented toward virtual goods rather than apps, or simply no payment capabilities at all.
To fully enable the App Economy, app marketplaces need to offer developers a simple mechanism to offer the flexible pricing and packaging options — including recurring subscription, pay-per-use and other pricing models — that best fit their products, customers, and markets.

Commentary

“The Windows Azure platform provided sharpcloud with the right tools to build our application for social roadmapping, and we needed to find the right way to process, bill and book our revenue,” said Sarim Khan, CEO and Co-Founder, sharpcloud. “Zuora and PayPal are committed to helping developers monetize their innovations and enabling companies like sharpcloud to realize the promise of the App Economy.”
“The app economy is creating tremendous opportunities for developers, and PayPal Apps is our commitment to helping them grow their businesses,” said Damon Hougland, senior director of PayPal X. “Zuora will deliver a simple, flexible recurring billing solution so our ecosystem can monetize their products the best way for their business.”
“We are excited to be part of PayPal Apps,” said Shawn Price, Zuora’s President. “Building on its longtime position as an industry leader and innovator in online commerce, PayPal is now playing a crucial role in the growth of the App Economy. PayPal’s vision for the App Economy will enable developers to bring their products to market across platforms faster, easier and more profitably.”

About Zuora, Inc.

October 10, 2014

Zuora Raises $20 Million in Series C Funding Led by Redpoint Ventures

Investors recognize the transformative power of subscription billing to billion dollar industries; founding investor of Netflix joins Zuora board of directors

Redwood City, CA — November 9, 2010 — Zuora, the subscription billing leader, today announced that it has received $20 million in a Series C round of funding led by Redpoint Ventures. Zuora’s existing investors, Benchmark Capital, Marc Benioff, Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital, also participated. To date, the company has raised $41.5 million in funding.

Zuora has been cash flow positive since its 2010 fiscal Q1, and has grown in excess of 400% in 2009 and is on track to repeat that in 2010. As a result of its success, Zuora will use the funds to rapidly grow its operations in the U.S. and EMEA and to accelerate its entry into new geographies. Zuora will also use the funds to dramatically expand its portfolio of industry-specific solutions to meet the growing enterprise demand for subscription billing solutions.

Concurrent with the funding of Series C, Tim Haley, Founding Partner of Redpoint Ventures has joined the Zuora board of directors. Notably, Haley was the first investor at Netflix, one of the leading subscription-based business models. Haley joins Peter Fenton, partner at Benchmark Capital; Scott Thompson, president of PayPal; and Jason Pressman, partner at Shasta Ventures, as outside members of the board.

“Like so many companies, Netflix started on a shopping cart-based, product-focused business model, and it wasn’t until it discovered the power of subscriptions that Netflix really took off,” said Haley. “Many enterprises are having that same epiphany now which is why I think what Zuora is doing is so transformational. Zuora has the ability to power the Subscription Economy across a variety of industries, positioning itself as one of the most exciting enterprise software companies to watch.”

“Three years ago, we predicted that industry after industry would be shifting to subscriptions, and that has become a reality in industries as diverse as cloud computing and consumer services and with industry leaders like ZipCar, Pandora and of course Netflix,” said Zuora co-founder and CEO Tien Tzuo. “We’ve only witnessed the beginning, and it’s the time to step on the gas. Whole industries are starting to be transformed with subscription billing as the most important element of success. That’s why we partnered with investors who shared our vision, and would help us accelerate our aggressive efforts to grow and lead this market and enable the next phase of the Subscription Economy.”

The Subscription Economy is Disrupting Billion-Dollar Industries

Every day, more companies are joining the Subscription Economy as enterprises and consumers shift from buying outright to subscribing to broad libraries of products and solutions. New-comers like Netflix, ZipCar and Pandora have forced new and traditional enterprises to adjust to the unprecedented pace of transformation. Subscription billing is the catalyst behind this massive transformation occurring in several multi-billion dollar markets, positioning it as one of the most strategic enterprise application over the next decade.

Zuora’s customers are some of the leaders across these industries that are rethinking their core products and value propositions as services and investing rapidly in subscription revenue models, including:

Cloud computing is disrupting the $3.4 trillion technology industry as enterprises move to elastic compute clouds that are enabled by subscription billing’s ability to meter, price, and bill cloud services. Zuora is the billing solution behind cloud leaders such as BlueLock, CloudCentral, EMC, Firehost, Stantive, Tata, and Zetta.
App marketplaces, led by Microsoft, Google, saleforce.com, Apple, PayPal and others, are estimated at $1 billion today and projected to reach $4 billion by 2012, creating more opportunities for developers to offer software-as-a-service. Some of Zuora’s SaaS customers include Box.net, Coremetrics, LiveOffice, Marketo, and Xactly.
The media industry recognizes it needs to monetize online content, and it requires billing to create promotions and bundles of digital and physical content that push out to multiple devices and platforms. Zuora is helping media companies like GigaOm, Primedia, Reed Business Information, and VNU Media transform their industry.
Online consumer service providers are using subscriptions to innovate the pricing and packaging of freemium, try-before-you-buy, and cross-sell service models that best meet consumer demand. In the case of Ning, Zuora helped the company shift from a freemium to a premium model in under 45 days. Other Zuora consumer services customers include Citysquares, Quova, and ReputationDefender.
Telecom and wireless technologies in WiMax, satellite, geo-location and 4G are creating a new wave of telecom services and service providers which are being enabled by subscription billing. Zuora customer Open Range, one of the nation’s hottest wireless broadband providers, deployed a fully scalable billing model in less than 100 days. Other Zuora telecom customers include BI, Bandwidth.com, and ShoreTel.

Zuora is Leading the Shift to the Subscription Economy

Zuora was founded in 2007 by executives from salesforce.com and WebEx to define and lead the subscription billing market. Since that time, Zuora has rapidly grown into the clear market leader across key metrics, including:

the most consistent customer success with some of the most innovative companies in the Subscription Economy;
the fastest product innovation with monthly — instead of quarterly or semi-annual — product releases;
the largest company in the market with the strongest management team including executives from IBM, NetSuite, eBay, Obopay, and Savvion;
the fastest SaaS company to get to cash flow positive, in just over two years;
the widest industry recognition including IDC’s Innovative Companies under $100M to Watch list, AlwaysOn’s Global 250, DreamSimplicity’s Top 10 Fastest Growing SaaS Companies, Lead411’s Hottest Silicon Valley Companies Award – 2010, and Beagle Research’s Think Forward Award;
the first to sign over $1 Billion in contracted subscription revenue in a quarter;
the best customer buzz and evangelism; and
the broadest product line for subscription billing including Z-Billing, Z-Payments, Z-Force, Z-Commerce, Z-Commerce for Media, Z-Commerce for the Cloud, and Z-Commerce for the Cloud VMware Edition.

About Zuora, Inc.

To learn more about Zuora, please visit www.zuora.com.

October 10, 2014

Zuora Delivers Z-Payments 3.0: The World's Most Complete Payment Solution for the Subscription Economy

Over 50 new features automate the invoice to cash process for even the most sophisticated payments operations.

Zuora’s November ’10 release delivers the 21st consecutive month of new capabilities through its Z-Commerce cloud computing platform.

Redwood Shores, CA — November 18, 2010

Market Leading Payment Sophistication with Zuora’s Ease of Use

Zuora, the leader in subscription billing, today announced Z-Payments 3.0, the next-generation of its subscription commerce solution. With Z-Payments 3.0, even the most sophisticated payments operations can be managed easily, from invoice to cash, all entirely in the cloud.

While companies seek to innovate with new subscription business models, technology roadblocks have gotten in the way. Forced to rely on resource-draining homegrown applications, legacy platforms built for one-time charges, or worse, arcane accounting work-arounds, companies have struggled to handle the volume and complexity of subscription products.

With Z-Payments 3.0, Zuora delivers over 50 new features to help companies automate their subscription payments operations. This marks the 21st consecutive month of product innovation from the subscription billing and commerce leader. Now Z-Payments 3.0, combined with Zuora’s Z-Billing and Z-Force applications, deliver the world’s most complete billing and commerce solution for the subscription economy.

“Zuora’s pace of innovation is what sets this company apart from other subscription billing solutions,” says Chris Drake, CEO and founder of FireHost. “Z-Payments 3.0 allows us to manage rapid growth, as well as to quickly mitigate changes to existing client accounts, flawlessly, without adding additional staff to our billing operations department.”

Over 50 New Capabilities to Automate Subscription Payments

Z-Payments 3.0 easily automates payment operations in the cloud with over 50 new and enhanced features, empowering companies to:

Proactively Manage Payment Notifications:

The payments notification engine makes it easy to automatically and proactively update customers and stakeholders about any payment status
Proactively email customers about upcoming payments or expired credit cards
Notify customers and internal stakeholders when a payment fails
Create different notification rules for individual customers
Setup custom email templates for every scenario
Create account payment profiles to store notification rules and email templates

Keep Payment Options Flexible:

Accept electronic payments from credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, tokenized transactions and automatic bank account debits (ACH)
Easily track payments made with offline methods like checks, cash and wire transfers
Process subscription payments for all customers at once, or group them by currency, gateway, or billing cycle
Take payments at any time on any day to ease the burden on new customers

Get Robust Payment Processing:

Sophisticated retry logic automates even complex credit card processing
Multiple payment gateways deliver the best rates and maximize payment acceptance
Automatically apply payments and credits against invoices for consolidated reporting and easy reconciliation
PCI Level 1 compliant payments platform
New integration with Litle & Co. payment gateway

Make Adjustments Easily and On-the-Fly:

Credit balances offer a new way to manage overpayments and smooth out cash flows
Create ad hoc invoice adjustments down to the individual line item
Offer credits, invoice adjustments, or refunds with a single click
Make sophisticated invoice line item adjustments, tracking service periods and accounting treatment for accurate revenue recognition
Easy, one-click payment cancellations

Get Detailed Payment Analytics:

Ad-hoc and canned reports, including custom fields, for every transaction and step from invoice to cash
Create customer facing invoice statements that trace every activity, payment, refund and credit
Fully auditable transaction history offers a clear view of all payments and adjustments
Automatically link payments with invoices for easy reconciliation, helping resolve questions and payment disputes

Easily Customize, Integrate and Manage the App:

Add custom fields to every object, anywhere in the payment process
Easily manage multiple payments currencies
Sophisticated permissions and profiles give you fine grain security control
Easy integration with your accounting applications

“As the leader in subscription billing, Zuora has had the most experience with the most companies tackling the most frequent to the most complex payment requirements, and we’ve transferred all of that knowledge into Z-Payments 3.0,” said Tien Tzuo, CEO at Zuora. “Our monthly innovation cycle means we are regularly adding these enhancements so our customers benefit immediately rather than a 6 or 12 month release cycle. Our commitment to delivering on this timeline continues to be the most aggressive and consistent in the SaaS market.”

Z-Payments 3.0 is part of Zuora’s November ’10 release, the company’s 21st consecutive monthly product release, which is now available to all Zuora customers.

About Zuora, Inc.

To learn more about Zuora, please visit www.zuora.com.

October 10, 2014

Zuora Z-Force Checkout Now Available on Salesforce.com AppExchange 2, the World's Most-Popular Marketplace for Business Apps

AppExchange ISV’s and Force.com developers can now deploy Zuora Z-Force Checkout to take orders directly from their AppExchange apps

ISV momentum on Force.com builds as Dreamforce 2010 approaches

Redwood City, CA — November 30, 2010 — Zuora, a Gold Sponsor at Dreamforce, today announced the availability of Zuora Z-Force Checkout on AppExchange 2. Z-Force Checkout allows any Force.com ISV, developer or enterprise customer to accept, bill, collect and provision customer orders directly from their application, and is the first solution enabling one-click “Buy Now” capabilities to help ISVs and developers monetize their Force.com applications. Built using Force.com, the enterprise cloud computing platform, Z-Force Checkout is immediately available for test drive and deployment on AppExchange 2.

The AppExchange, launched in 2006, is the leading marketplace for on-demand business applications, and today is part of the rapidly growing app economy, which according to BusinessWeek is estimated at $1 billion and projected to reach $4 billion by 2012. As most Force.com ISVs and developers sell their applications on a recurring subscription basis, Z-Force Checkout delivers the subscription commerce capabilities for ISVs and developers to display price plans and editions right from within their application, to take online orders right from within their application, and take credit cards with PCI compliance via PayPal and other payment gateways right from within their application. In addition, Z-Force Checkout works seamlessly with Salesforce’s License Management Application (LMA) so that when online subscription orders are placed, the end customer’s subscription details — Seats purchased, start date, expiration date, term and status — Are updated simultaneously in the LMA.

Commentary

“We moved from a free model to paid model rapidly with Z-Force Checkout for our app on the AppExchange 2,” says Marc Aubin, CEO of AppBuddy. “It’s clear that Zuora understands the needs of salesforce.com ISV’s and developers to make money.”
“As a rapidly growing Force.com developer, Cloud Conversion needs to be able to collect payment on a recurring basis and accurately provision access for customers every time,” said Jon Jessup, founder and CEO of Cloud Conversion. “Zuora Z-Force Checkout provides us a straightforward way to address this critical requirement so we can expand our offering instead of expanding our operations and overhead.”
“Zuora Z-Force Checkout addresses an important service for ISVs and developers on AppExchange 2 — A rapid and effective way monetize their solutions,” said Shawn Price, Zuora’s President. “Zuora shares salesforce.com’s vision to expand the App Economy by providing the tools and solutions ISVs need to succeed. With Z-Force Checkout, the Salesforce ecosystem can offer the pricing and packaging their customers demand — and do it faster and easier.”
“Force.com ISVs have subscription businesses,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer of salesforce.com. “Z-Force Checkout removes the friction from solution billing and collections to make it easy for ISVs to rapidly deliver and monetize their solutions on AppExchange 2.”

Zuora is a gold sponsor of Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2010, at Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco December 6 – 9, 2010. In addition, Zuora’s CEO Tien Tzuo will be presenting on the topic “Making Money in the App Economy.” Be sure to stop by Zuora’s booth # 819 for more information.

About the Force.com Platform and AppExchange 2

Force.com is the only proven enterprise platform for building and running business applications in the cloud. The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM applications, more than 800 ISV partner applications like those from CA Technologies, FinancialForce.com and Fujitsu, and 170,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com’s 82,400 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel. Force.com also enables developers to make any enterprise app social by leveraging the social collaboration components including profiles, status updates, and real-time feeds available with Chatter.

Applications built on the Force.com platform can be easily distributed to the entire cloud computing community through the salesforce.com AppExchange 2 marketplace, now featuring the ChatterExchange.

About Zuora, Inc.

October 10, 2014