Only Seven Public B2B Companies Are Still Growing Over 30% — a Level That Was the Median in 2021

Seven. That’s how many public B2B software companies now exceed 30% revenue growth — a growth rate that was the median for public SaaS companies in 2021, per the SaaS Capital Index, and has since become roughly the 90th percentile. Jason Lemkin’s read is that the broad middle tier of “healthy” 30-50% growers has effectively disappeared, splitting the market into three groups instead: a small AI-driven compounding cohort, a large cluster growing in the low-to-mid 20s, and a long tail growing single digits. The valuation gap tracks the growth gap almost exactly: sub-10% growth companies trade around 1.9x revenue, 20-30% growers get about 5.5x, and 30%+ growers command 8x-20x+ — meaning a company moving from 18% to 22% growth roughly doubles its enterprise value. Four of the seven fastest-growing public companies use consumption-based pricing. The named examples are specific: Figma grew 48% with 136% net dollar retention, Anthropic’s run rate grew 7x year-over-year, Databricks hit $6.9B in annualized revenue growing 80%+, and Stripe hit $6.8B in 2025 revenue, up 33%.

The bifurcation shows up in how founders are responding to it, not just in the numbers. Electric CEO Ryan Denehy, on rebuilding his company as AI-native after two prior exits, describes going AI-native as collapsing his own unit price while improving margins — a move that made direct sales uneconomical but unlocked channel partnerships previously out of reach, including a deal with ADP’s 1,700 sales reps that onboarded 300 customers in a single day, more than the company’s best full month under its old model. His read on why distribution matters as much as product: “that business only worked because they paid car companies to install” the service, referencing SiriusXM — direct one-by-one acquisition wouldn’t have scaled the same way.

For sales and GTM leaders, the practical read is that the goalposts for “good growth” have moved: quota-setting, comp design, and investor expectations built around a 2021-era growth curve are now benchmarked against a market where the top decile, not the top half, defines what healthy actually looks like.