The last thing I remember thinking about C3.ai (C3) seeing its billboards outside San Francisco and wondering what the hell the company did and how much it was spending on huge outdoor advertising.
This as far as I know. The company filed for public listing on Friday, and instead of being a mess that burns money and buzz words, C3 is actually in pretty good financial shape, generating both recurring revenue from growing software and cash in a few quarters.
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.C3's growth isn't as smooth as some investors may wish, but the company has an attractive gross margin profile and even the occasional net income to aim for. Its financial picture is therefore generally pleasant, with some caveats we will explore.
But what does C3 do, who supported it and what can we learn from analyzing its numbers? I'm glad you asked, because those were precisely the questions I had in his archive.
Pull up the document here and let's move on to the numbers.
Inside the bowels of a modern artificial intelligence company
First, what is C3? The first startup calls itself a corporate artificial intelligence (AI) company, which sells software services that help large corporations build artificial intelligence apps "of extraordinary scale and complexity that deliver significant social and economic advantage," according to its S -1.
The company sells its software in two forms: as a development environment that allows customers to design, build, and deploy their AI apps on their favorite cloud, and as a set of predefined apps users can quickly launch. If C3 were a startup, I'd ask how effective its AI tool is at this point, but since this unicorn is worth $ 3.3 billion and has nine-figure revenue, it must have come up with something that works.
A number of venture capital firms have invested in C3, with the company raising more than $ 360 million over its life cycle, according to data from PitchBook. BlackRock led its H series, FS Investors led its G series, its $ 100 million F series led by TPG, Breyer Capital led its E series, TPG Growth led its D series, while its C series and earlier are a bit more difficult to analyze, but it appears Makena Capital Management and Interwest Partners were active at that stage.
Looking at the ownership, founder and entrepreneur Thomas Siebel owns just under 34%, TPG owns 22.6% and Baker Hughes owns around 15%. The company's voting power lies in its Class B shares, which Siebel effectively controls.
Right now, is the business itself damn good?
The numbers
C3 has a troublesome fiscal year, a twelve-month period that ends on April 30th. So when we discuss its two most recent fiscal years, we are talking about the four-quarter periods that ended on April 30, 2019 and April 30, 2020. Next, we will look at the quarter of July 31, the most recent period for which we have data.
