Contrary Research
@Contrary_Res
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Last Seen Profiles
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We’re excited to introduce Contrary Research!
Our vision is to be the best destination for finding high-quality research and in-depth analysis of private companies.
1/11
22
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Everyone’s heard that ChatGPT grew to 1 million users in 5 days.
But it’s also probably costing OpenAPI ~$100K PER DAY to run it.
Let’s talk about the hidden costs of API-based business models…
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Today, Rippling announced $200M in funding at a $13.4B valuation. In 2023, the company had ~$350M in ARR.
But back in 2019 at ~$3M ARR, the team put out a Series A memo laying out everything they wanted to accomplish.
Here’s how they’ve stacked up to their own expectations…
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Helion Energy raised $2.2 billion last year from Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz, and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital, among others
That's almost more money than any renewable energy company in history.
So why are Sam Altman and others so bullish on Helion? Let's dig in...
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Generative AI will play a key role in the future of content creation.
In the last few months progress in the field went into hyper speed
We've assembled some of the best resources to get up to speed on the space…
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We're pleased to publish our first deep dive report!
The rivalry emerging between Snowflake and Databricks resembles the fierce competition we've come to appreciate from the major cloud providers.
In this deep dive, we explore the differences between both companies: 1/8
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Y Combinator has produced some of the world's largest private companies like Stripe and Reddit
Analyzing private companies requires a core understanding of how startups work
Today, we're sharing the top 10 most-read resources from Paul Graham's essays and YC's startup archives:
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One of the biggest questions we get is "how do I get information on private companies since these companies aren't public?"
We've curated the top 20 research resources we utilize for getting a good grasp on private tech companies:
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Security has evolved from just a box to check, and has become a core pillar of the enterprise.
It isn't just the CISO's responsibility anymore; security is everywhere.
In our latest deep dive, we dig into the evolution of security, and why it isn't going anywhere...
6
44
251
Wiz is currently one of the fastest software companies to reach $100M ARR, doing it in just 18 months.
How did they achieve this milestone?
We dug into the steps that led to such explosive growth, and here's what we found:
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As AI experiences a Cambrian explosion, natural language processing (NLP) is a critical building block
60% of companies are increasing NLP budgets, but accessibility has always limited the quality of ML projects
Hugging Face is changing that. Here's what you need to know:
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Faire has quintupled its valuation from $2B to $12B within 2 yrs.
The founders (ex-square employees) have changed how local retail is done. They've raised over $1.7B from some of the world's top investors
This is the story of Faire and lessons of how Faire has been successful:
4
27
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No company exists in a vacuum. For every business, their market landscape is a part of the story as much as anything else.
Today, we're launching our first Living Landscape. Companies & markets change too quickly for a static map.
Check out our full list + Figma map where you
4
28
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From bankruptcy & $30K in debt to raising over $300M.
The story of three cofounders who beat impossible odds to build a $4B company through remarkable grit.
Here is the story of how
@webflow
got built and the critical lessons from the founders we picked up during our research:
3
22
168
Cloud security is a $30B market. But its just getting started, expected to reach $100B by 2029
First gen CloudSec just moved the security paradigm into the cloud. Scan for vulnerability, create alerts
But a paradigm shift is coming. We unpack it in our latest deep dive below...
3
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Yesterday, we released our latest deep dive
The Designer Class: From Figma To Canva
The world of design isn't just static images; its websites, video, gaming, AR/VR, and more.
Let's unpack the landscape for design software, and what the future of design looks like...
6
34
166
We just released a new memo on dbt labs!
dbt labs is one of the fastest-growing data infrastructure companies
It 6x’ed in revenue in 2021 and tripled its active users to over 9,000 in less than 5 yrs
What's driving this growth?
We delve into it and compare it to Snowflake...
3
19
163
Six months ago we launched Contrary Research with the mission of becoming the best starting point to understand any private tech company
Since launch we've written 100+ memos, 7 deep dives & passed 10K followers on twitter
To celebrate, here are our top 10 most popular memos...
3
18
162
One year ago we launched Contrary Research as the best resource to understand any private tech company
Since then, we've published ~250 pieces, written 500K+ words, hit 40K+ subscribers, & launched a podcast
To celebrate, here's 5 key takeaways from building Contrary Research:
6
20
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Bell Labs. The Traitorous Eight. Xerox PARC. The PayPal Mafia.
Massive technology waves have often been driven by specific groups of exceptional people.
Are the authors of the famous Transformer paper driving that next wave with AI? Let's dig in...
4
31
159
SpaceX is in talks to sell secondary shares that would value the company at $150 billion!
That would position SpaceX to leapfrog ByteDance as the world's most valuable private tech company
Many people know SpaceX for its spacecraft, but not the business. Heres a breakdown:
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Generative AI will play a key role in how content is created from text and images all the way to videos.
Here are the most thoughtful resources on the ecosystem:
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DARPA was once hailed as an organization “that shaped the modern world," building technology like satellites, GPS, the internet, and more.
Could a research organization with the talent density of OpenAI achieve the same level of impact? Here's our last deep dive of 2022:
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Endpoint security is the most fragmented segment in security
Its undergone the most innovation from past giants like McAfee, to Microsoft, and Crowdstrike
We're excited to launch our deep-dive around the era of endpoints, exploring the space, the latest trends, and key players:
2
24
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Notion has become one of the world's most popular productivity apps over the past few years surpassing over 30 million users!
We dug into the business, founding story, and how Notion is a part of the new generation of post-bundle productivity tools
Here's what we found:
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The last 10 years have seen a huge surge in Product-Led Growth (PLG) companies going public
By some estimates their market cap is 25% higher than other SaaS cos and they boast better margins too!
So what exactly is PLG? and which 5 private companies are leading the next wave?
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Ramp is currently one of the fastest growing fintech companies.
The founders have talked about the most essential things they got right, but many people don't discuss them enough.
These were the key decisions that helped them become an $8B company in less than 3yrs:
4
9
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Never let a crisis go to waste – CFOs know that better than anyone.
Between the allure of AI, re-orgs, and an evolving tech stack – what does the New Frontier in Finance look like?
We asked 21 CFOs their perspectives on this question.
Let's unpack this in our latest deep dive:
4
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DevOps has emerged as the best way to develop and deploy software
90% of execs say DevOps is a priority, yet only 12% have mature practices.
Here's our deep dive report exploring this gap, the industry and key trends:
5
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120
Zapier has become a critical layer in no-code automation
Their network effect extends over 4K+ integrations for the long-tail of prosumers
From a bootstrapped hacker tool, they've grown to over $100M ARR
Let's unpack the rise of Zapier:
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13
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The global cybersecurity market is expected to reach $403 billion by 2027.
IDC estimates over 750M new cloud-native apps will be created by 2025, all of which will require security.
Here is a brief overview of some of the fastest-growing cybersecurity companies to watch:
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One of the most universal problems for professionals is how to get more sleep in less time.
@eightsleep
is using advanced technology to improve how much rest people get.
Sleep is a $30B market, so let's dig into the business of sleep:
4
12
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As fun as it is to lob whatever question pops into your head at ChatGPT, the reality is that every query has a cost.
OpenAI is footing the bill to get users and engagement and testing their models. But it's not cheap.
@ahmedsalims
we will have to monetize it somehow at some point; the compute costs are eye-watering
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This is the story of two Stanford dropouts who turned a last minute pivot into a company worth $12B
The co-founders of Brex recently shared lessons learned along the way to building a multi-billion dollar business in less than 5 yrs
Take a look:
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ChatGPT is a variant of GPT-3. Most people using ChatGPT have used the familiar chat interface at
But both models are also accessible through API, which means applications can be built using models like GPT-3. Every new application means more API calls.
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Databricks has led the data revolution with open source software and complementary products, building a $30 billion company in the process.
But when the Databricks team first got started, their pitch deck was one of the worst Ben Horowitz had ever seen.
Here’s their story:
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Progress in the development of AI was built on open research and collaboration.
But OpenAI changed all of that. ChatGPT sent every company scrambling to respond.
The brightest minds in AI are an interconnected family tree. But the industry is now facing an existential rift...
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Some of the biggest successes of the last 10 years have been built around APIs: Twilio, Okta, Stripe, Plaid -- the list goes on.
But for every business built around an API, you can wonder: what are the underlying costs to serve those API calls?
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Databricks is acquiring MosaicML for $1.3B
How does a company that was worth ~$200M in the heat of 2021 garner that price tag today?
For the last 20+ years the focus was on gathering data (eg storage, compute).
But the next 20+ years will be about what we DO with data (AI).
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In 2017 an app launched, and one semester later had 80% of Yale students as users. Soon after, they grew 7x and expanded to 13+ campuses
The app? Snackpass
How did Snackpass achieve viral growth and where can it go from here as it tackles the $600 billion food takeout market?
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One estimate is $100K per day, which is roughly ~$0.01 per chat. The number will ebb and flow as users continue to grow, but the reality of the product is this:
Every API call costs money.
How many GPUs does it take to run ChatGPT? And how expensive is it for OpenAI? Let’s find out! 🧵🤑
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OpenAI's partnerships, the defense-tech race, new memos on Rippling, Plaid, and more.
The best resources and stories we saw to get the new year started:
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Contrary Research tells the stories of the world’s most interesting private tech companies.
Today we’re launching Contrary Research Radio, hosted by Kyle Harrison (
@kwharrison13
), to dive deeper.
Our first guest is Aidan Gomez (
@aidangomezzz
), CEO of Cohere.
Spotify:
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While we don't know exactly how much its costing OpenAI, we know (1) it costs single-digit cents per chat, and (2) even OpenAI doesn't know exactly what it's costing.
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And while OpenAI's API costs stem from compute in running the underlying LLM, almost every API business has a similar cost driver.
Each API call costs money.
The rise of the "API Economy" has made it easier for applications to be interactive. But what do the costs look like?
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Melanie Perkins built Canva into one of the world's most valuable private companies generating over $1B in revenue across over 100M users!
Later this week we'll feature Canva in our newest deep dive. Ahead of that, heres a breakdown of Canva's founding story and success:
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Benchling was founded in 2012. Today, it has become a $7B platform built for biotech R&D.
Their mission: unlock the power of biotech researchers.
This is the story of an MIT computer science dropout that was ready to take on the biotech industry. 3 key lessons from his story:
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Startups push the boundaries of what's possible
The teams behind these businesses are the real engines, but their stories are often hard to find
Now, you can learn about them – in one place, and completely free!
Here are the 25+ memos Contrary Research released this past week:
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Open source, generative AI, the future of databases, and more.
The best resources and stories that we saw last week that you might have missed:
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But a big portion of that revenue just gets passed on to financial institutions as interchange.
Take Adyen as an example. Their gross margins are typically 12-13% because so much of their revenue goes towards interchange.
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In 2018, Figma was barely out of private beta.
Meanwhile, Sketch was more popular, Invision was at $100M+ of revenue.
But today, Figma has blown past the competition to become the de facto design tool
Heres the story of how
@zoink
built a platform that redesigned design:
3
14
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$19 out of $20 marketing ad dollars don't convert into revenue.
Mutiny's founders raised $50M to fulfill their mission to change that using AI, data, and no-code.
This is the story of Mutiny and how they are driving the art and science of web conversion...
3
13
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The average enterprise uses 175+ different applications
~40% of companies consider integrating applications as the number one blocker to digital transformation
Why are integrations so important yet such a problem, and how is Merge’s Unified API changing the integration game?
1
15
76
Online payments are exploding, with transaction volume in the trillions.
As that grows, so does fraud. Online fraud will reach >$300 billion in a few years.
Sardine helps Brex, Wealthsimple, Metamask and Bitski reduce fraud. Here's the story...
3
12
74
There are over 3 billion gamers globally, almost 40% of the planet
Epic Games has established itself in the $320B gaming industry with games like Fortnite becoming one of the most played games in the world at 1B+ hours played each year
What's next for Epic? Lets explore:
1
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As more aspects of life become digital, we interact more and more with design
The designer class includes anyone shaping our digital experience–from professional designers to casual marketers
In our latest deep dive we unpack that tools that shape those designs...
3
19
74
Earlier this week we published our deep dive on the Evolution of DevOps
The future of DevOps is the future of software development. Probably worth paying attention to.
So here are the best
#DevOps
resources we came across during our research:
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Databricks and Snowflake are increasingly duking it out to be the center of the universe for every company's data.
This week the fight is playing out live, with both the Snowflake Summit and Databricks Data+AI Summit going on.
Here's some of the biggest news so far:
•
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What if speaking another language were no longer an obstacle? What if there were an up to 6x more accurate version of Google Translate?
Meet DeepL, a company that’s transforming the $65 billion language services market for 20K+ businesses and 1 billion users...
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66
Unlike most fusion systems, Helion’s reactors are :
1) Small: The size of a shipping container
2) Inexpensive: $10M instead of $50B
3) Able to extract electricity from the system directly rather than convert heat into steam to power a turbine
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For some businesses, those API-enabling activities are fairly passive. Take payment processors for example.
Businesses like Stripe, Checkout, and Adyen collect 2-4% of each transaction as fees. And when you're processing $600B+ of payments like Stripe is, that starts to add up.
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✅Today, Rippling published a similar memo from their Series F. The vision? Alive and well.
With the expansion into products like bill pay and global payroll, Rippling is on its way to building what they call a "cloud-native mega-vendor."
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Downrounds, trends top investors are watching for in 2023, and the future of AI. You don't want to miss this one.
Here are the best things we saw last week:
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7
63
Believe it or not, with 75K+ pizzerias across the US, pizza is a $45B market.
National pizza chains and independent pizzerias alike are competing for a piece of the pie. Slice is stepping in to level the playing field for smaller shops. Here's the story:
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12
62
There are 1B knowledge workers that use computers. But only 2.5% of them are programmers who can create software.
To democratize software development, Airtable brought innovation to the most widely adopted programming tool: the spreadsheet.
Here's their story:
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7
62
Every year, private tech companies set out to build the future.
To build the future, many of the founders and investors around these companies attempt to predict the future
From AI to nuclear fusion and beyond. Let's look at the predictions from top VCs and founders for 2023...
2
11
61
As the resurgence of US manufacturing continues to become pivotal for mission-critical sectors, emerging startups like
@HadrianSpace
are becoming integral to the supply chain.
We just published a report on Hadrian, the factory manufacturer for aerospace & defense companies:
2
7
55
Discover the fundamentals of software investing, top fintech trends for 2023, and how to scale from $5M to $100M without hiccups.
Here are the best resources and stories we saw last week that you might have missed:
2
10
55
The future of data engineering, how to build a platform business, what the next decade of software + AI holds, and more.
The best resources and stories that we saw last week that you might have missed:
1
9
57
We sat down with Amjad Masad, the CEO of
@Replit
for our first Startup Story event.
Seats were limited, so if you didn't make it, we have the full video, transcript, and notes on the discussion. Interested?
1. Comment below
2. RT + Follow
@Contrary_Res
so we can DM the link
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Companies like Meta and Roblox are vying to become the "metaverse" company of the internet's next generation
But Discord is the metaverse people are already living in
Here's why their “Community-as-a-Service” product may have an edge...
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7
56
Today, 72% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized recommendations and interactions.
Algolia's API helps more than 10,000 companies deliver personalized search experience in their products & handles over 1.5 trillion search queries per year
Here’s how it works…
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It took Netflix 3.5 yrs to hit 1 million users.
It took Twitter and GPT-3 24 months.
It took Pinterest 20 months
It took Facebook 10 months
It took Copilot 6 months
It took Spotify 5 months.
It took Dall-E and Instagram 2.5 months.
And it took ChatGPT 5 days.
h/t
@alliekmiller
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And Stripe may only be keeping a fraction of that 2.9% but they've had a lot to work with, launching a half dozen products in the last few years.
h/t
@mariogabriele
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In 2015, even Google was struggling with labeling massive volumes of data to train models.
At Stanford Medicine, doctors were hand-labeling thousands of X-rays — until one tool replaced an 8-month process with a few hours of work.
Meet Snorkel AI, the Stanford AI lab spinout:
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6
55
Twilio's main business is delivering text messages. Companies like Airbnb, Salesforce, and Lyft use Twilio's API to share user information in order to deliver their messages.
But that delivery step (
#6
below) isn't as simple as it looks.
1
3
54
We're experiencing a "Satellite Renaissance" as a new generation of entrepreneurs enters the space sector.
Decreased launch costs have opened the floodgates for founders and customers tackling the opportunities in space.
From manufacturing to communication, here are just a few:
3
9
54
Contrary Research focuses on telling the stories of the most interesting private tech companies. But to tell those stories, we need storytellers!
We're excited to open applications for our Research Fellowship. Come be a part of our storytelling engine
Here are a few benefits:
2
8
53
Snyk is the largest software development security platform.
Traditionally, software was not integrated with security. But things have changed.
Synk has pioneered the collaboration between DevOps and Security teams.
This is the story of Snyk and why they've been so successful:
1
7
54
The rumors of fintech's death have been greatly exaggerated.
In our latest deep dive, we unpack:
• The explosion of fintech startups since the GFC
• The emergence (and death?) of banking-as-a-service
• The future shape of fintech infrastructure
Check it out below 👇
3
16
52
Fintech valuations, vertical SaaS opportunity, interviews with TikTok and Mozilla CEOS, and product updates from Shopify, Neeva, Instagram & Zoox
Plus new memos on Calendly, Chargebee, Instacart and more
Here's what we have been reading and the memos we published last week:
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53
Helion is currently building their 7th generation reactor, Polaris, in Everett, Washington
After hopefully demonstrating net energy generation in 2024, Helion will build their 8th system which aims to be a commercially viable reactor before 2030
1
1
50
What a night. Thank you to
@amasad
and the
@replit
team for making our first Research event a success
And thanks to
@indexventures
for being such gracious hosts. We're already looking forward to our next event together.
1
6
51
Whether it's the latest product launches, GTM strategies, playbooks, or founding stories - each Saturday, we highlight the best company storytelling we've seen.
Here are some of the best stories we saw last week for companies like Canva, Anduril, and more...
1
4
50
Demand for batteries is soaring as the world shifts to electric vehicles
This means greater demand for lithium, nickel, & cobalt for battery manufacturing, but also increasing supply shortages
Backed by Sam Altman & Bill Gates, KoBold Metals is focused on solving this...
1
4
50
Each Saturday, we highlight the best company storytelling we're reading.
Whether it's life science R&D, enterprise IT spending, or the competitive landscape among collaboration tools.
Here are some of the best stories we saw last week...
1
4
49
Every time Twilio delivers a message, they have a fee.
Every API call costs money.
Twilio isn't the one to deliver those SMS messages. They pay a carrier every time.
2
1
50
New York is once again shaping up to be the place for tech events during the summer.
Thanks to Contrary NYC, we’ve got a pulse on all the exciting things happening over the next few months.
Here are 14 awesome events coming up in New York…
1
7
49
80% of developers say internal tools are critical to their company's operations, but 60% say their orgs aren't investing enough in internal tools
Since starting in 2017, and last valued at $3.2 billion, over 500K internal apps have been built on Retool. Here's the breakdown...
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7
48
(con't) In 2021, Parker Conrad gave a talk at Startup Grind entitled "The One Thing Everyone Knows About Building a Startup is Wrong"
In it, he articulated the idea of a Compound Startup:
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9
49
Generative AI that has captured almost everyone's attention in the past 6 months
Runway is one of two startups behind text-to-image model Stable Diffusion
Recently valued a $500M, Runway has been at the forefront of content creation & editing with its AI creative suite...
1
11
48
For payment businesses like Adyen or Stripe, that's just a cost of doing business. Once they've paid those fees, there isn't a lot of complexity for them that drives huge costs
Both companies are doing just fine with their piece of the pie left over...
1
1
48
Since the GFC, fintech infrastructure exploded with VC funding. But it’s 2023. Fintech multiples are down. Public exits are quiet. Tourist investors have left the building.
Where do we go from here? We’re launching a new Living Landscape & an event on 10/26 to unpack that. 👇
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A simplified version of their business goes like this:
(1) Twilio charges ~$0.79 for 100 messages
(2) Carrier X delivers those 100 messages and charges Twilio ~$0.40 to do it
(3) Twilio keeps the other $0.39 as their gross profit
1
1
47
What to watch in AI, product-led growth strategies, SaaS Benchmarks and many more.
The best resources and stories that we saw last week (that you might have missed):
1
3
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Not really.
Twilio grew active customer accounts from 28.6K in 2016 to 280K in 2022. In that same time their gross margins have dropped from 57% to 49%.
1
1
48
New applications of generative AI, Stripe's latest news, and diving into the nitty gritty of startup valuations
Here are the best private company resources we saw and memos we published last week...
1
6
47
Cities were originally built for walking. But since the 1920s, up to 50% of land in the average American city has been devoted to roads, parking, and cars.
Even though 60% of Americans WANT to live in walkable areas.
Here's how Culdesac is trying to reimagine cities for people:
1
8
48
A tactical guide for SaaS companies, changing reality for BNPL players, a flexible work policy database and Salesforce's ex co-CEO has a new startup
Plus new memos on Vanta, Retool, Runway and more
Here's what we've been reading and the memos we published last week:
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