SaaS is no longer just an application delivery model, it’s become the operating layer for how enterprises buy, deploy, and scale digital capability. In the EU alone, 52.7% of enterprises used paid cloud services in 2025, and nearly all cloud adopters (96.44%) purchased at least one SaaS category (email, office, ERP/CRM, security, etc.), signaling that SaaS is already embedded in day-to-day operations rather than a discretionary IT upgrade.

Against that demand, our Discovery Platform shows a large, still-fragmenting ecosystem (119K+ companies, including 34K+ startups) with innovation skewing toward applied productization (4.3K patents, 13.7K grants, 13.23% annual patent growth) and scale hiring (5.4M professionals, +4.8K net new employees last year).

Commercial momentum is reinforced by external market forecasts: the SaaS market is estimated at USD 408.21B (2025) and projected to pass the trillion-dollar range by the mid-2030s (with forecasts clustering around low-to-mid teens CAGR).

Capital signals remain constructive but selective: global VC funding rose 7% in 2024, with USD 113B invested in Q4 and USD 371B total for the year, implying renewed appetite for scaled platforms and AI-enabled workflows.

For corporate innovators, the near-term direction is clear: SaaS value shifts from seats to outcomes via vertical SaaS, embedded analytics, and decision intelligence (all growing faster than baseline in our trend set), while vendor differentiation increasingly depends on data advantage and talent intensity.

 

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SaaS Industry Report: What “Default” Looks Like in 2026

Paid cloud usage has crossed the mainstream threshold in Europe: 52.74% of EU enterprises used paid cloud services in 2025, and among cloud users 96.44% purchased at least one SaaS category.

The SaaS market is expected to expand from USD 408.21 billion in 2025 toward roughly USD 1.2 trillion by 2034 (CAGR 13.32%). In North America, the USA and Canada host ~17,000 and ~2,000 SaaS companies; US-based SaaS providers serve nearly 14 billion customers worldwide, and the US SaaS market is projected to reach USD 225 billion by 2025.

 

 

 

From an innovation viewpoint, our Discovery Platform tracks 119K companies in SaaS, including 34K startups, reflecting a deep ecosystem spanning early-stage specialists and global platform providers, growing at a yearly rate of 8.98%.

Innovation is primarily applied: companies hold 4.3K patents and receive 13.7K grants; those patents are filed by ~3.2K applicants, with 13.23% yearly patent growth, pointing to increasing formalization around platform architecture, security, data management, and AI-enabled features. Patent issuance is led by China (2190+ patents), followed by the USA (1190+ patents).

Operationally, SaaS companies employ ~5.4 million professionals globally, with 4.8K net employees added in the last year, while activity remains concentrated in the USA, India, the UK, Germany, and France.

Startup Selection: 5 Picks from a 34.3K SaaS Company Pipeline

Subble – SaaS License Management Platform

Australian startup Subble develops a software license management platform that tracks, analyzes, and optimizes SaaS usage across organizations. It integrates with cloud applications to monitor user activity, license allocation, and behavioral patterns.

Then, it processes this data to identify unused licenses, overprovisioned accounts, and cost inefficiencies. Moreover, the platform automates visibility across multiple tools, reduces manual audits, and delivers behavior-driven insights that support informed license decisions.

Fence – Debt Facilities Management

Spanish startup Fence builds a blockchain-based SaaS platform that automates debt facility operations for capital providers and asset originators. It ingests loan and asset data in any format and integrates seamlessly with existing technology stacks.

The platform automates verification, borrowing base calculations, reconciliation, reporting, and capital flows across the full debt lifecycle. Further, it unifies agent roles in asset-based lending, delivers real-time portfolio visibility, and supports programmable on-demand debt. Also, it enables instant settlement and continuous monitoring through covenants and performance triggers.

Thus, the startup reduces operational overhead, eliminates idle capital in secured lending, improves capital efficiency, and provides structured control and transparency for credit investments and borrowing activities.

HSE Hive – Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE) Management

Algerian startup HSE Hive builds a cloud-based SaaS platform that streamlines health, safety, and environmental management for organizations. It centralizes HSE data and processes into a single digital system that supports incident reporting, audits, inspections, and observations.

Also, the platform enables risk tracking and performance measurement through real-time dashboards and structured workflows. It enables early risk identification, supports multimedia attachments, tracks KPIs and corrective actions, and provides consistent reporting across health, safety, and environmental indicators.

Vinera – Wine Pricing Comparison Platform

Chilean startup Vinera offers a SaaS platform that compares wine and spirits pricing and assortment across e-commerce retailers. It runs automated processes that collect daily product data from multiple eCommerce sites.

Further, it applies algorithms that match identical products across retailers, and presents the results through a logical reporting layer with dashboards and exports.

The platform delivers price history, pricing analytics, assortment views by store and attributes, notifications, and daily or real-time updates without requiring technical expertise.

Credentia – Background Verification Solution

Indian startup Credentia develops deep-tech-enabled SaaS platforms that automate end-to-end background verification for employers, hiring agencies, and background verification partners.

It digitizes case initiation and document collection through automated workflows and optical character recognition, which extracts and structures text from uploaded documents.

Then, it executes technology-driven verification with real-time validation and delivers standardized final reports through integrated systems that connect with existing human resource management systems and applicant tracking systems.

Moreover, the platforms support standalone or integrated deployments, provide live case tracking, management information system (MIS) reporting, performance analytics, and billing reconciliation while enforcing security, compliance, and data protection.

Where SaaS is Moving: Verticalization, Embedded Analytics, Decision Intelligence

Software-as-a-Service is increasingly expressed as packaged capability rather than standalone features. Think industry-specific platforms, analytics embedded into products, and decision engines that orchestrate data and AI. The firmographic metrics below highlight which subsegments are scaling teams, attracting new entrants, and sustaining above-average growth.

 

 

Vertical SaaS includes 685+ companies operating in this segment, employing approximately 41 100 professionals. The addition of new employees in the last year indicates focused team expansion as products mature within specific industries.

With an annual growth rate of 19.50%, vertical SaaS outpaces the broader market. This reflects increasing demand for industry-specific software that embeds domain workflows, regulatory requirements, and tailored analytics.

Embedded analytics counts 540+ companies, supported by a workforce of around 31 600 employees. The segment sees incremental growth aligned with integration-focused development.

The annual growth rate of 8.65% reflects stable adoption as SaaS providers increasingly integrate analytics directly into applications. This segment supports real-time insights, improved user engagement, and data-driven decision-making without requiring standalone business intelligence tools.

Decision intelligence is gaining traction as organizations seek to move beyond descriptive analytics toward predictive and prescriptive insights. Our Discovery Platform identifies 1200 companies in this segment, employing approximately 45 000 professionals.

With an annual growth rate of 15.02%, decision intelligence reflects growing enterprise demand for platforms that combine data, AI, and business logic to guide complex decisions. This trend supports strategic planning, risk management, and operational optimization across SaaS-driven business environments.

Investment Landscape: Where Capital Concentrates

Investment activity in SaaS reflects the category’s scale and strategic role in the broader tech stack. The average round size is USD 19.1 million according to the Discovery Platform, pointing to a funding environment weighted toward early- and mid-stage transactions, while still supporting periodic mega-rounds for platform leaders.

In the broader VC market, funding rose 7% in 2024, driven by a sharp Q4 rebound that included several of the largest VC-led deals on record. This includes Databricks (USD 10B Series J), OpenAI (USD 6.6B), xAI (USD 6.0B Series C), and Waymo (USD 5.6B Series C). With USD 113B invested in Q4, total 2024 funding reached USD 371B, roughly in line with 2020 and about 10% above 2019.

 

 

At the ecosystem level, 65.5K+ investors have participated in SaaS, backing 110.4K+ closed funding rounds across 28.1K+ companies. Despite this breadth, capital remains concentrated: the top investors have deployed more than USD 30.9B, indicating that a relatively small set of firms accounts for a disproportionate share of conviction capital in scaled SaaS innovators.

 

 

How We Built this SaaS Market View

This SaaS outlook is built on insights from the StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, which tracks ~9M companies, 25K+ technologies and trends, and 150M+ patents, news articles, and market reports. For this report, we analyzed the last five years of market signals across 119.9K SaaS companies (including 34.3K startups) and tracked momentum through workforce indicators (~5.4M professionals; +4.8K added last year), innovation activity (~4.3K patents; ~13.7K grants; 13.23% yearly patent growth), and capital formation (110.4K+ funding rounds; 65.5K+ investors; USD 19.1M average round), complemented by external market sizing and capital market benchmarks.

The near-term outlook is defined by a shift from horizontal app sprawl to outcome-focused platforms: product consolidation, vertical SaaS, embedded analytics, and decision intelligence are becoming the main paths to differentiation, while AI-native features and usage-based pricing reframe how value is delivered and captured.

For buyers, this means prioritizing solutions that prove adoption and measurable impact, and partnering where integration, governance, and data controls are hard to build internally. Get in touch to explore 34.3K+ SaaS startups and scaleups, plus the trends and innovators shaping the next cycle.