Stephane Berthier knows about handling exponential growth. As a Silicon Valley partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he has worked with pre-IPO tech companies for 20 years. You can identify some of the client names: VMware, Splunk, ServiceNow, Crowdstrike, Databricks.
Fourteen months ago, Berthier moved to the other side of the conference table, becoming CFO of Uniphore Technologies. Uniphore sells artificial intelligence software for analyzing voice interactions. The company recently introduced Q for Sales, an AI platform that assists salespeople in video and digital interactions.
Uniphore doesn’t have to sprint toward a public listing: Last month, it closed a $ 400 million Series E funding round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Another investor is former Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers, who has acquired a 10% stake and sits on the board of directors.
Over at Zoom, I spoke with Berthier about Great Resignation, maintaining a startup culture, and what Uniphore needs to be IPO-ready.
Stephane Berthier
CFO, Uniphore Technologies
The company was founded in 2008; artificial intelligence software for analyzing voice and video interactions
Former job:
- Partner, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Silicon Valley
This lecture has been edited for brevity and clarity.
VINCENT RYAN: Uniphore wants to increase its employee base to 1,000 before April 2023. That seems like a daunting goal in this job market. How do you do it?
STEPHANE BERTHIER: It used to be difficult to find engineers; now, it’s hard to find anyone. But we are growing and there are many opportunities. Do you want to work at a larger corporation like Google or Facebook, or do you want to work at a startup where you can create something? Our company is also attractive because there is a huge financial increase. Equity is an important component for us from a compensation perspective. We cannot compete with money [compensation]but the upside of the stock helps sell the company to [job candidates]. We also do “acqui-hires”-small acquisitions that let you get 10 to 15 people in a block.
You also need to make sure you don’t lose too many current employees.
BERTHIER: Sustainability is not just about money; it’s about opportunities. Do employees feel connected to leadership? Do they believe in the company’s vision? Does the company offer a growth path? Financially, we have weekly meetings and bring in people from all departments. They talk about product outlook and expanding into new markets, for example. Employees should feel that we are all working towards the same goal. It’s more important if not more important to keep the people you have, your high performances than bringing in new people.
“As the company grows, you don’t want to be too process-oriented because you don’t do anything. It takes forever to make a decision.
How do you keep the startup feeling when a company has grown so fast, assuming you want to?
BERTHIER: Part of it is the people you hire. Under our leadership, we bring in people with substantial company experience to take us to the next level and prepare for an IPO. But we also have leaders from the startup ecosystem. A typical profile is an executive who sells their startup to a larger company, worked at a large company for a while, and then goes to us.
As the company grows, you don’t want to be too focused on the process because there is nothing to do. It takes forever to make a decision. Maintenance [a startup culture] requires being very deliberate. You have to think about it every day.
Employees and job candidates may want to hear that you will be public within a certain period of time. What will you tell them?
BERTHIER: I interviewed a candidate in Europe this morning, and his question was, “Walk me down the path to IPO.” My response has always been the same: We are preparing for it. When the market is right, we will go. That can take anywhere from 18 to 24 months or longer.
Actually, there are some benefits to privacy. I don’t have to worry about what happens next quarter. I can have a more lasting vision. The only thing we lack is the liquidity of [shares]. This step is not in the immediate future, but we can create liquidity. When a company has a strong investor interest, it will find investors willing to buy shares in the secondary market. If an employee has been in the company for more than “X” years, for example, we may allow them to sell a percentage of their stock – [a partial] exit. That they may be more willing to wait for an IPO.
Is there anything you need to improve before becoming a public company?
BERTHIER: As CFO, the number one thing that matters is the predictability of the quarterly revenue stream. We have so many customers, so the sales cycle is very long. The shorter your sales cycle, the more predictable revenue flow. Right now, it could skip a quarter, so it’s hard to guess at this point. I need more size for more predictable. That requires new investment in sales and marketing and more feet on the ground. The leadership has made predictability a priority this year. If you’re unpredictable, being a public company is too risky.
How do you shorten the sales cycle?
BERTHIER: You look at sales from start to finish, from lead to when the customer signs the contract. Where are the friction points? Try to get rid of all that. This requires a surgical approach.
