No one has a true crystal ball when it comes to Cloud spend in the coming years, but the leaders have a lot of data. Thoma Bravo is one of them. It’s the #1 Private Equity firm for B2B and SaaS companies and it surveyed 501 Cloud and SaaS buyers.
Here’s what it found:
- Software spend will grow 19% a year the next 4 years
- SaaS will grow 13% a year, still substantial but lower than some Gartner estimates
- CIOs and enterprises are about 60% of the way in their digital transformation journey. More than halfway onto the Cloud, but only just
And importantly, The SaaStr + AI Era will drive spending on software overall to 4.0%+ of GDP:
This is what we are all seeing and feeling, although as Thoma Bravo notes, it’s early. Morgan Stanley said recently AI spend is about 50% new, 50% repurposed from the rest of the IT budget. That 50% new is enough to fuel the growth we see above.
AI driving software from 2.0% of GDP in 2020 to 4.0% in 2030 would be huge. It would be the New Golden Age of Software.
That may be just what we’re seeing. It’s too early to know for sure, but it’s directionally correct.
