Anrok, Momentum.io and Sierra are among the most impressive SaaS companies so far this year.

A sales tax management tools provider. A way to turn sales and customer calls into intelligence. And a conversational artificial intelligence platform from the former co-CEO of Salesforce.

Anrok, Momentum.io and Sierra are just some of the startups operating under software-as-a-service (SaaS) models to capture CRN’s attention so far this year for the capabilities and promises of their wares as well as healthy war chests of capital raised to take on the competition.

Many of the 10 Hottest SaaS Startup Companies Of 2024 (So Far) are leveraging AI and other cutting edge technologies to help businesses transform operations and scale sales – showing that innovation not only happens at the largest tech vendors.

[RELATED: The 10 Hottest DevOps Startups Of 2024 (So Far)]

SaaS Startups 2024

Flexera’s 2024 State of the Cloud Report from March said that when it comes to SaaS spending, 12 percent of respondents spend $600,000 or less, 14 percent spend between $600,000 and $1.2 million and another 14 percent spend between $1.2 million and $2.4 million.

Moving up the spending range, 17 percent of respondents report SaaS spending between $2.4 million and $6 million, 17 percent spend between $6 million and $12 million, and 7 percent spend between $12 million and $24 million.

At the top of the spending tier, 6 percent of businesses are spending between $24 million and $60 million on SaaS, while 9 percent report spending over $60 million on SaaS annually.

For this report, CRN is defining startups as founded at most five years ago. So while ChatGPT might be the buzziest subscription-based software tool on the planet this year, creator OpenAI was founded in 2015 – beyond CRN’s parameters.

This list is part of CRN’s 2024 Year In Review (So Far) series, which includes the 10 hottest cloud computing startups of 2024 (so far) and the 10 hottest cloud security startup companies of 2024 (so far).

Here are some of the hottest SaaS startup companies of 2024 so far.

Anrok

HQ: San Francisco

CEO: Michelle Valentine

Anrok positions its tools as a way to manage sales tax and value-added tax (VAT) regulations related to SaaS practices.

The San Francisco-based startup promises users a way to handle any subscription billing structure, monitor physical nexus and cover home rule jurisdictions for clients. It integrates with Quickbooks, Gusto, Zenefits, Workday and other software vendors.

In April, Anrok raised a $30 million Series B round of funding from Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, its CEO’s former employer Index Ventures and others, according to Anrok. Investors included Karen Peacock, former CEO of Intercom; David Faugno, former CFO of Qualtrics and current president of 1Password; and Alex Estevez, former CFO of Atlassian.

The startup plans to use the funds for hiring and investing in the product, according to a statement from the time. In February, Anrok launched its first large language model (LLM)-powered feature – extracting data from lengthy tax compliance documents.

Operating itself under a SaaS model, Anrok has a starter package for $499 a month and a core package for $999 a month, which adds ongoing tax and compliance support, NetSuite and Salesforce integrations and support for multiple entities, according to the company.

Anrok CEO Michelle Valentine co-founded the startup in 2020, according to her LinkedIn account. Her resume includes more than a year with Airtable as a product manager. She spent about two years as an investor with Index Ventures, leaving the firm in 2019.

The company also offers a partner program aimed at consultants and other partner business models.

Propense.ai

HQ: Miami

CEO: Timothy Keith

Although only available in beta and not publicly available until 2025, Propense.ai is turning heads with its SaaS platform that leverages artificial intelligence, data science, user psychology and industry insights to improve cross-selling at accounting firms, law firms and other professional services businesses.

The Miami-based startup measures a variety of factors to improve sales, including uncaptured revenue, at-bats, engagement types and average service lines per client, according to Propense.

In March, the company raised a $3 million seed funding round from the likes of Harlem Capital, Operator Collective, New Enterprise Associates and Florida Opportunity Fund.

CEO Timothy Keith co-founded Propense in 2023, according to his LinkedIn account. He previously worked at Introhive for about five years, leaving with the title of industry director.

Momentum.io

HQ: San Francisco

CEO: Santiago Suarez Ordoñez

Momentum.io uses AI and automation to turn sales and customer calls into intelligence to capture forecasts, capture churn risk, update Salesforce, share product feedback and more.

The San Francisco-based startup allows users to review sales and customer calls without leaving Slack, syncing data in real time across the stack

Momentum’s subscription model starts at $29 a user a month and includes a $99 per user per month model that adds unlimited AI signals, automatic contacts and premium support.

In July, Momentum raised a $13 million Series A round of funding. The round included investments from FirstMark Capital, Stage 2 Capital, Basis Set Ventures and Leadout Capital.

Advancements to the platform launched this year include custom summaries, automatic churn risk detection and contact automation, according to Momentum.

Momentum CEO Santiago Suarez Ordoñez co-founded the startup in 2020, according to his LinkedIn account. His resume includes about a year with Whyline as chief technology officer. He also co-founded Blameless in 2017 and served as CTO for about a year and spent about a year as a principal engineer and team lead with MuleSoft. Salesforce bought MuleSoft in 2018.

Learn to Win

HQ: Redwood City, Calif.

CEO: Andrew Powell

Learn to Win offers a mobile-first enterprise SaaS training platform with modules of up to five minutes, pre-made web templates for instructors and confidence and accuracy measures to improve coaching.

The Redwood City, Calif.-based company positions its wares for construction, sports, food and beverage, defense, life sciences and other industries.

In June, Learn to Win raised a $30 million Series A round of funding, with participants including Westly Group, Norwest Venture Partners and Pear VC.

CEO Andrew Powell co-founded Learn to Win in 2019. Learn to Win also has a partner program for resellers and other partner business types. His resume includes more than two years at Stanford.

Luminary Cloud

HQ: San Mateo, Calif.

CEO: Jason Lango

Luminary Cloud bills itself as the world’s first modern computer-aided engineering (CAE) SaaS platform, providing quick simulation, analysis and iteration in minutes by leveraging advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) in the cloud.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based startup markets its technology as useful in aerospace, defense, automotives, sports and other industries, according to Luminary.

Luminary operates on a consumption model, billing $5 per credit under its starter package and going up to $8.50 a credit for its users who serve federal government agencies, adding in complete encryption and additional compliance, according to the company.

In March, Luminary raised a $115 million round of funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures and emerged from stealth. In June, Luminary became available on Google Cloud Marketplace.

CEO Jason Lango co-founded the company in 2019, according to his LinkedIn account. His resume includes co-founding Bracket Computing in 2011 and serving as chief technology officer. Bracket sold to VMware in 2018.

Sierra

HQ: San Francisco

CEO: Bret Taylor

Former Salesforce co-CEO and current OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor unveiled his next act in tech in February – partnering with former Google colleague Clay Bavor to launch conversational AI platform Sierra.

The San Francisco-based startup promises a platform that can answer customer questions and solve problems through a natural, conversational experience, according to Sierra. Its AI agents match brand tones and voice and can help with exchanges, subscription updates and other use cases. Organizations can build and personalize their own agents with Sierra, adding guardrails to align the agents with policies.

In February, Fortune reported that Sierra has raised $110 million from Sequoia Capital and Benchmark.

Taylor joined San Francisco-based Salesforce in 2016 with the $750 million acquisition of Quip, which he founded and led as CEO. Taylor rose through Salesforce’s ranks as a president and chief product officer, president and chief operating officer and finally co-CEO, a title he held from 2021 to January – leaving Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff the sole CEO.

Taylor, Sierra’s CEO, co-founded the startup last year, according to his LinkedIn account.

Taylor worked at Google from 2003 to 2007, leaving with the title of group product manager, according to his LinkedIn account.

Prismatic

HQ: Sioux Falls, S.D.

CEO: Michael Zuercher

Prismatic aims to speed up product integrations for low-code and code-native professionals, offering an embedded integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that works with business-to-business SaaS tools.

The Sioux Falls, S.D.-based says its platform can cut down on engineering time and speed up sales and onboarding. The platform has pre-built connectors, a custom components creation option and a way to manage customer integrations from configuration to deployment and version updates.

In January, Prismatic raised a $22 million Series B round of funding, which Five Elms Capital led. The startup pledged to use the money toward enhancing the platform.

Recent innovations to the platform include the ability to reference component actions while building code-native integrations and an on-premises agent for integrating with locally hosted databases and applications,

Prismatic CEO Michael Zuercher co-founded the company in 2019, according to his LinkedIn account. He previously founded and led Zuercher Technologies for about 12 years, selling the company to TriTech in 2015 and leading the Zuercher division for another three years as senior vice president and general manager.

In 2018, TriTech, Zuercher and Aptean’s Public Sector Business merged to form CentralSquare Technologies.

Cube

HQ: San Francisco

CEO: Artyom Keydunov

A code-first, developer-oriented approach to data is part the selling point of Cube, a startup whose tools can help with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), isolated environments, version control and code reviews in data management.

The San Francisco-based startup has a cloud-native, fully-managed, enterprise-grade SaaS offering for interested users.

In June, Cube raised $25 million in a round of funding, with participation from Databricks Ventures, Decibel, Bain Capital Ventures, Eniac Ventures and 645 Ventures. With this new funding, Cube has promised more advancements in data modeling, low-code tools, interoperability, performance and AI-enabled data intelligence.

Since announcing the new capital, Cube has introduced previews for a semantic catalog and an AI assistance for natural language querying plus updated its integrations monitoring feature, according to the company.

Cube also has a partner program for consultancies and other partner model types.

BettrData

HQ: Golden, Colo.

CEO: Aaron Dix

BettrData offers a data operations workflow automation platform that promises to streamline data operations management and processes for better speed, efficiency and compliance.

The Golden, Colo.-based startup’s platform has resonated with investors, with the startup revealing in April that it landed $2.2 million seed round of funding with participation from Range Ventures, SaaS Ventures and Greater Colorado Venture Fund, according to BettrData.

BettrData’s low-code, no-code tools and services can help developers transform data and enrich it, syncing data in real time and meeting various security standards including Service Organization Control Type 2 (SOC 2) and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

CEO Aaron Dix founded BettrData in 2020, according to his LinkedIn account. His resume includes about three years with Gloo, a software platform for churches, leaving in 2022 as data engineering director.

Glean

HQ: Palo Alto, Calif.

CEO: Arvind Jain

Glean bills itself as the enterprise AI platform for company data, providing trusted answers grounded in users’ data with a centralized platform providing no-code, custom generative AI agents, assistants and chatbots with security, permissions and more.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup’s pitch won over investors to the tune of more than $200 million raised in a funding round, as revealed in a February blog post. Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Coatue, Iconiq Growth, Capital One Ventures, Citi, Databricks Ventures and Workday Ventures were among the round participants.

Its subscription model includes a basic offering for $295 a month billed annually, according to Glean’s website. A pro offering increases the number of invoices to more than 35 a month and adds more general ledger (GL) integrations.

CEO Arvind Jain co-founded the startup in 2019, according to his LinkedIn account. He previously co-founded security vendor Rubrik and served as a distinguished engineer at Google, which he left in 2014.

In June, the startup made Glean Apps, Actions and APIs generally available for users to build custom agents and applications with advanced large language models (LLMs).