Congratulations to Everbridge on their success

Congratulations to Everbridge on their success

It is perhaps not the usual thing to congratulate your biggest commercial rival when they achieve great success. But what the heck, I am going to do it anyway. Boston based Everbridge Inc, who are undeniably the biggest beast in the emergency mass notification jungle, last week went for their IPO on the NASDAQ. It was a roaring success.

Everbridge raised $75 million from investors to keep growing the company, valuing it at launch at some $350 million. They have 3,000 customers in 200 countries. The stock leapt 27% in its first day of trading and has been rising ever since meaning that the valuation is now over $500 million.

This week Everbridge enterprise software was used to send an emergency message to over 1 million New Yorkers following the bombings there over the weekend, asking for help in tracing the suspect. And the suspect that was being sought in connection with the attacks was quickly arrested. I don’t know whether the alert was directly connected to the arrest, but the ability to send emergency mass notifications to citizens in such situations has proved to be a very valuable asset for the New York city authorities. The same software was used in Boston during the Marathon bombing in 2013.

These events have helped to keep the Everbridge stock rising as the market recognises the critical value of the product that they offer in these challenging times. This is great news for Everbridge, but it is also good news for all of us who are following in their wake and hoping to emulate their success. Advances in communications technology have enabled public authorities and commercial operations to revolutionise their communications with employees, suppliers, customers and even the general public, and they are rushing in to take advantage of the opportunity.

The market is expanding worldwide at a compound annual growth rate of over 20% and is expected to double in size by 2020. The US market is maturing, but in every other global region the opportunities are continuing to expand rapidly. In such a competitive market a successful product needs to have its own points of differentiation. We believe at Crises Control that we have those USPs and that as a very new entrant to the market we also have the agility to be able to move quickly to develop our offering to meet changing customer needs.

But for now, I want to offer my congratulations to Everbridge for showing us the way and hope that we can match their success in the future. They are halfway to becoming a unicorn.

Rickie Sehgal