Blasting through $200m and 600,000 subscribers!

We’ve just released our financial results for the first half and it’s a real milestone for the Xero team. We’ve got our skates on and we’re executing on what we said we’d do, around the world. A huge shout-out to you all for the work you’re doing to drive growth and serve more business owners and their advisors than ever before.

Those interested in viewing our full results can see them here.

We have blasted through $200 million in annualized monthly revenue, and we now have over 600,000 subscribers from 180 countries. Revenue has grown so strongly we can fund more of our growth ourselves and contain our full financial year cash outflow to similar levels to the prior financial year. We have over $220m in cash so we remain in a very strong position to serve our customers.

It’s fun to smash through these milestones. $100m wasn’t long ago and it shows the massive growth potential of the small business market for us and our partners.

The adoption of cloud technology continues to accelerate at pace and it’s strengthening our cloud leadership position. We continue to be one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the world.

Our subscription revenues are up $37.6 million (72%) to $89.8 million for the six months to September 30, and we’re recording strong growth in both the US and the UK.

The substantial investments in building our internal capability is seeing us deliver innovation at a rapid pace. We’ve delivered hundreds of updates and more than 40 new features, including payroll in 15 US states, 11 strategic partnership integrations, automated Australian tax submissions and invoice reminders to speed up small business cashflow.

We deliberately choose to continue to invest for growth. We know we’re riding the once-in-a-generation shift to the cloud and want to invent many new tools that will help our customers and partners build better businesses.

It’s thrilling that our strategy is paying off. We are the market leader in Australia and New Zealand with more than 425,000 customers and we’re the first small business cloud accounting company to achieve 100,000 subscribers in the UK, US is progressing well and our business is taking off in numerous other markets.

Tomasz Tunguz, a partner at US-based venture capital firm, Redpoint, recently said there are a handful of businesses that have the opportunity to transform themselves from being a software provider, to being a platform. It’s a fundamental shift that increases both the defensibility and value of the business.

“Evolving into a platform from a software product dramatically increases the revenue potential of a business. It engenders greater loyalty to the platform, exerts a gravity with software partners by providing a terrific distribution channel for partners, which in hand, provides more value to customers, and develops new revenue streams,” Tunguz said.

The substantial team we’ve grown over the last 18 months is coming on stream and we’ve never been more excited or confident in our business.

When we start the year the mountain to climb looks enormous, but everyday we take a step forward in the journey, and when you look back it’s amazing what you can achieve.

Thank you to our staff, partners, customers and shareholders for your part in our ongoing success. It’s fun to be on this ride with you all.