Revenue Unicorn Club: Samsara

Research & Frameworks
Revenue Unicorn Playbook

Samsara Joins Revenue Unicorn Club

Congratulations to Samsara as it crosses $1 Billion in annual revenue and joins the software Revenue Unicorns!

Let's see what we can learn from Samsara’s journey...


Revenue Growth


Samsara’s revenue grew above or near the Revenue Unicorn median on the path to $1 Billion in annual revenue. Samsara displayed strong growth in a difficult market environment as they scaled to $1 Billion in revenue during a period of macroeconomic headwinds.

Gross Margin


Samsara exhibited a durable gross margin profile at each revenue range and maintained a gross margin of 70%+ at scale. CrowdStrike and Okta displayed similar gross margin strength on their path to $1 Billion in annual revenue.

Sales & Marketing


Samsara’s investment in sales and marketing converged with, yet remained above, the median Revenue Unicorn as it approached $1 Billion in annual revenue. Samsara’s sales and marketing path to $1 Billion in annual revenue reflects a similar trend to Snowflake’s and UiPath’s

Research & Development


Samsara invested heavily in research and development early in the company’s lifecycle and later exhibited leverage with its research and development spend. Both BILL and Box exhibited a similar trend on the journey to $1 Billion in annual revenue.

General & Administrative


Samsara’s general and administrative expenses converged with, yet remained above, the median Revenue Unicorn as it approached $1 Billion in annual revenue.

Stock Based Compensation


Samsara started the journey to $1 Billion in annual revenue with a lower SBC expense as a percentage of revenue compared to the Revenue Unicorn median. Samsara accelerated SBC expense as a percentage of revenue throughout their journey to $1 Billion in annual revenue before converging with, yet remaining above, the median Revenue Unicorn. When viewing SBC expense as a percentage of enterprise value, Samsara is at 1.8%, which is slightly higher than the Revenue Unicorn median of 1.7% in the $1 Billion+ revenue range.

Free Cash Flow


Samsara started the journey to $1 Billion in annual revenue with a free cash flow margin below the Revenue Unicorn median and later exhibited leverage with its margin profile throughout its path to $1 Billion in annual revenue. Elastic and MongoDB exhibited similar free cash flow margin trajectory at scale.


Samsara started the journey to $1 Billion in annual revenue with a free cash flow margin below the Revenue Unicorn median and later exhibited leverage with its margin profile throughout its path to $1 Billion in annual revenue. Elastic and MongoDB exhibited similar free cash flow margin trajectory at scale.


Time to Reach $1 Billion in Revenue

Samsara reached $1 Billion in revenue after 8.25 years. This is shorter than the median time of 13.25 years it took other Revenue Unicorns to reach the $1 Billion revenue mark. Nutanix and Zoom took a similar amount of time to achieve the $1 Billion revenue threshold (Nutanix at 8.00 years and Zoom at 8.50 years).

Other Revenue Unicorns founded around the same time as Samsara (2015 founding) include Snowflake (2012) and Elastic (2012). These two companies took a median of 9.40 years to achieve $1 Billion in revenue (Snowflake at 8.75 years and Elastic at 10.00 years).

The Journey to $1 Billion in Revenue


For those of you that love data as much as we do, below is the full data set used for this analysis.

Again, congratulations to the Samsara team! Stay tuned for the next Revenue Unicorn update.

Note: The complete list of Revenue Unicorns used in the comparison can be found in the presentation here.

About Samsara

Samsara was founded in 2015 by co-founders Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket. As per the company’s materials, Samsara is on a mission to increase the safety, efficiency and sustainability of the operations that power the global economy. To realize this vision, Samsara pioneered the Connected Operations Cloud, which allows businesses that depend on physical operations to harness Internet of Things (“IoT”) data to develop actionable business insights and improve their operations. Without connected digital tools, physical operations businesses struggle to access real-time data, making it nearly impossible to achieve complete operational visibility or drive meaningful improvements in productivity. Samsara is solving the problem of opaque operations and disconnected systems. By harnessing recent advancements in IoT connectivity, artificial intelligence (“AI”), cloud computing and video imagery, Samsara is enabling the digital transformation of physical operations. Using the Connected Operations Cloud, customers can visualize their physical operations in real-time, on one integrated platform in a way that would have been impossible and impractical only a few years ago.

The company reported $281 Million in first quarter revenue for the period ended May 4, 2024. Combined with results from the preceding quarters, this recent performance boosts Samsara across the $1 Billion in annual revenue threshold as measured on a last twelve month basis to become the latest software Revenue Unicorn.

About The Revenue Unicorn Playbook

The Revenue Unicorn Playbook is an analytical guide that explores the growth of public software companies from $100 Million to $1 Billion in revenue. The goal of the Playbook is to offer founders and company leaders a framework to examine their growth and investments as they scale. You can find the original Revenue Unicorn article here and presentation here.