The 10 Hottest SaaS Startups Of 2022 (So Far)

Abacus Insights, Evo Security and Zomentum are just some of the SaaS startups that have made CRN’s list.

A platform for health care data, subscription identity and access management; tools aimed at managed service providers; and software that promises to drive revenue for MSPs are among the hottest software-as-a-service startups CRN has seen so far in 2022.

Abacus Insights, Evo Security and Zomentum are just some of the SaaS startups that have made CRN’s list. With the country facing an uncertain economy and signs of impending recession, many SaaS startups lean on cost savings as a marketing message to potential customers.

And like the major cloud vendors, some of these startups are also selling their tools with an industry focus to better match their tools with customers’ needs. And with the neverending barrage of cyberattacks, offering tools to improve customer’s security postures appears to be another winning message this year.

[RELATED: THE 10 HOTTEST CYBERSECURITY STARTUPS IN 2022 (SO FAR)]

What SaaS Startups Made CRN’s List?

The following companies are on CRN’s list:

Read more about how these startups made it to CRN’s 10 Hottest SaaS Startups Of 2022 (So Far).

Abacus Insights

CEO: Minal Patel

Headquarters: Boston

Website: abacusinsights.com

Abacus Insights provides a SaaS platform for standardizing data across a health care organization’s ecosystem so that organizations can find new insights and more easily maintain and update legacy platforms.

Founded in 2017 and based in Boston, the startup is aimed at health care payers, providers and payer delegated entities. Abacus manages more than 21 million patients and promises up to 60 percent savings to the total cost of ownership, according to the company. It is also an Amazon Web Services partner and AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.

In June, Abacus raised $28 million in a Series C round of funding, led by the publicly traded MultiPlan Corp. Blue Venture Fund, CRV, .406 Ventures, Horizon Healthcare Services and Echo Health Ventures participated in the round, according to the company.

The money will go toward hiring, scaling the business and advancing the platform, according to Abacus. The startup has raised $81 million in venture funding to date.

Before he founded Abacus, CEO Minal Patel worked at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey for more than two years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He left in 2017 with the title of senior vice president and chief strategy officer.

He also worked at Care Management International for more than eight years, according to his LinkedIn. He left the company in 2014 with the title of CEO.

Chattr

CEO: Jim Schimpf

Headquarters: Tampa, Fla.

Website: chattr.ai

Chattr offers subscriptions to a digital hiring assistant that aims to free up managers’ time from sourcing job applicants and onboarding new employees, with a focus on hourly workers.

Founded in 2018 and based in Tampa, Fla., the startup screens candidates, tracks applications and schedules interviews. Chattr promises 88 percent less time spent hiring, 62 percent more applicants and 21 percent fewer no-shows, according to the company.

Companies Chattr has worked with include KFC, Subway, Wendy’s and DoubleTree by Hilton, according to the company.

In April, Chattr raised $3.7 million in a seed funding round led by Florida Funders, according to a statement.

Before he co-founded Chattr, CEO Jim Schimpf worked at the Opportunity Knocks postcard marketing company for more than 15 years, according to his LinkedIn account. He co-founded the company in 2005 and grew it to more than 6,000 customers.

Clockwork

CEO: Fady Hawatmeh

Headquarters: Chicago

Website: clockwork.ai

Clockwork wants its SaaS platform to fill gaps in the finance and forecasting work small businesses face when they don’t have full-time chief financial officers or accountants.

Founded in 2018 and based in Chicago, Clockwork offers a platform that integrates with Quickbooks Online and Xero and predicts finances and cash flow based on three years of company data. Companies can make five-year projections, dashboards and other insights.

In April, Clockwork raised $2 million in seed funding from Underscore VC. The startup also has a partner program with custom pricing, pro features and co-branded marketing material, among other benefits, according to the company.

The company has built more than 2,000 models, worked with more than 2,000 companies and created more than 150,000 assumptions, according to Clockwork.

Before he founded Clockwork, CEO Fady Hawatmeh worked at Fadico for about four years. He left the company with the title of principal outsourced CFO, according to his LinkedIn account.

Evo Security

CEO: Michael Roth

Headquarters: Austin, Texas

Website: evosecurity.com

Evo Security has started to attract investor attention while it continues to upgrade its brand of subscription identity and access management (IAM) offerings aimed at managed service providers (MSPs).

In January, the Austin, Texas-based startup announced a $3.9 million seed round of funding led by Sorenson Ventures, Inner Loop Capital, Secure Octane, Channel Angels and multiple strategic angel investors. The money is for building new capabilities and features and building a partner success and support team, according to Evo.

In June, Evo launched Epic, its Evo Partner Identity Cloud service, which aims to protect MSP small and midsized clients against common cybersecurity attacks.

The cloud includes single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA),privileged access management (PAM), secrets management, technician elevated access and unified directory services, according to Evo.

Evo previously made CRN’s list of 18 “Red Hot IT Products and Services MSPs Need to See.”

HacWare

CEO: Tiffany Ricks

Headquarters: New York

Website: hacware.com

HacWare is founder and CEO Tiffany Ricks’ pivot from a software and cybersecurity consultancy to a cybersecurity awareness SaaS product with an MSP program. She started the current iteration of HacWare in 2019.

In April, HacWare raised $2.3 million in seed funding, according to TechCrunch. Elevate Capital led the round, with 2.0 Ventures, Aura Innovation Fund, Chai Angels and others participating. Ricks will use the money to expand the engineering team, sales team and integrations.

The company identifies 280,000 vulnerable behaviors monthly and mines 500,000 phishing messages daily, according to HacWare. Perhaps owing to Ricks’ consultancy roots, HacWare offers a partner program for MSPs promising passive income and security awareness automation.

Recent upgrades to HacWare’s offerings include updates for Gmail and Google Workspace users, new failure report options, improved smithing simulations and new cybersecurity compliance training.

Before starting HacWare, Ricks worked for more than 10 years at L3 Technologies, according to her LinkedIn account. She left L3 in 2017 with the title of senior software engineer task lead.

KSOC

CEO: Brooke Motta

Headquarters: San Francisco

Website: ksoc.com

Only founded last year, KSOC – which stands for Kubernetes Security Operations Center – offers an event-driven SaaS platform for automatically addressing Kubernetes security risks and enforcing least privilege access control across distributed cluster infrastructures.

In February, KSOC raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by .406 Ventures with participation from Vertex Ventures US and Gula Tech Adventures.

The company discovers and tracks clusters, container registries, cloud logs and other Kubernetes assets.

Before she co-founded KSOC, CEO Brooke Motta worked at Sonatype for more than a year, according to her LinkedIn. She left the company last year with the title of vice president of sales.

She previously served as the chief revenue officer of web application firewall services provider Wallarm and crowdsourced cybersecurity services provider Bugcrowd.

Syrup Tech

CEO: James Theuerkauf

Headquarters: New York

Website: syrup.tech

Syrup Tech is taking on supply chain disruptions and labor shortages with its predictive SaaS for commerce inventory planning, with the goal of preventing waste and helping merchandisers and planners use data to forecast needs.

Founded in 2020 and based in New York, Syrup draws in data from transactions, marketing and inventory with social media trends and even weather information to prevent retailers running out of stock or accumulating excess stock.

In July, Syrup raised a $6.3 million round of funding to work on new modules and features. Google’s artificial intelligence-focused Gradient Ventures led the round with participation from Flybridge Capital, Firstminute Capital, Rackhouse Ventures and angel investors.

Before he co-founded Syrup, CEO James Theuerkauf worked for three years at McKinsey & Co., according to his LinkedIn. Theuerkauf left the consulting firm in 2019 with the title of investment associate.

Ternary

CEO: Sasha Kipervarg

Headquarters: San Francisco

Website: ternary.app

Ternary, the provider of a financial operations (FinOps) platform for Google Cloud, announced in February that it raised $6.72 million in seed funding for product upgrades and to go to market.

FinVC and NEVA SGR led the round, with participation from Oceans Ventures, Operator Partners, Great Oaks Venture Capital, and Riverpark Ventures.

Founded in 2020 and based in San Francisco, the startup has a partner program to help consultants, engineers and other stakeholders improve the cost of cloud for customers.

Recent updates to Ternary’s offerings include scoped views with optimization recommendations, automated resource recommendations, cost compare and a feature for ramp planning.

CEO and co-founder Sasha Kipervarg told CRN last year that the company takes a channel-first approach, with partners including 2022 CRN MSP 500 member Sada and Google partners 66degrees and HiView Solutions.

Kipervarg has spent his career in infrastructure, with previous stints as head of global cloud operations at data connectivity platform provider LiveRamp and director of DevOps at Workday.

Vendr

CEO: Ryan Neu

Headquarters: Boston

Webstie: vendr.com

SaaS for SaaS appears to be Vendr’s offer to customers with its subscription platform that shows companies available software to buy, pricing data and provides a single system of record for managing the software stack.

Founded in 2019 and based in Boston, Vendr promises dollar and time savings by taking in data including supplier names, annual amounts and renewal dates and improving payment terms, increasing plan tiers and reducing unit rates, among other actions to get better prices.

The platform also facilitates sign-offs from the necessary stakeholders such as finance, security and legal, according to Vendr. Customers include HubSpot, GitLab and DraftKings.

Vendor has channel partners, including Microsoft Gold partner Emergent Software, according to the company. It has processed more than $1 billion in software spending and delivered $200 million in savings to customers.

In June, Vendr raised $150 million in a series B round of funding, among the largest rounds of funding for a SaaS company this year. Craft Ventures and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 co-led the round. Sozo Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Sound Ventures, Tiger Global and Y Combinator participated.

Vendr will invest the money into the platform and use the money in case of an economic downturn, according to the company.

Before he founded the company, CEO Ryan Neu worked at InVisionApp for more than a year, according to his LinkedIn. He left the company in 2018 with the title of head of enterprise sales for the Americas.

Neu also worked at HubSpot for more than five years, according to his LinkedIn. He left the company in 2016 with the title of director of sales for small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

Zomentum

CEO: Shruti Ghatge

Headquarters: San Francisco

Website: zomentum.com

Zomentum provides a revenue platform aimed at MSPs and vendors trying to grow their partner programs.

Co-founded in 2018 by CEO Shruti Ghatge, the San Francisco-based startup offers tools pipeline management, building quotes, automating sales tasks and other capabilities, according to Zomentum. Recently added features include QuickBooks Online integration, a mobile device view, Microsoft New Commerce Experience (NCE) integration and integration with HubSpot.

In January, Zomentum bought Belgium-based automated license management and billing reconciliation service Goolash to add new features around billing accuracy for MSP customers.

Before she co-founded Zomentum, Ghatge worked at Accel for more than two years, according to her LinkedIn account. She left Accel in 2018 as a member of the investment team.

Her resume includes more than a year with venture capital firm Exfinity, leaving in 2016 with the title of investment analyst. She also worked at Credit Suisse for more than a year, leaving in 2014 with the title of risk management analyst, according to her LinkedIn.