What is Gilles Samoun’s net worth?
Gilles Samoun has a net worth of around $700 million as at October 2022. He is a French investor, tech entrepreneur and a SaaS expert. He is the founder and CEO of Salesmachine, a Customer Success Management platform that helps SaaS companies increase conversion.
Early Life
Gilles was born in France in the year 1965. By age 18, he enrolled at the University of Paris to pursue a degree in Computer Science. He went on to study for a master’s degree in Computer Networking and Artificial Intelligence which he completed in 1989.
Career
Gilles started his career at Fininfo, a software company in Paris. He served as project manager for two years before moving to HP where he was VP and General Manager for Europe. After five years of excellent work, Gilles moved to head another company called Mediapath Technologies before deciding to start his own company.
The Birth of Qualys
In 1998, while working at Mediapath, Gilles hacked the idea of providing cybersecurity solutions to software companies. This is what gave birth to Qualys. Qualys is a pioneer and leading provider of cloud security and compliance solutions. It has over 6,700 customers in more than 100 countries, including a majority of the Forbes Global 100 and Fortune 100 companies.
Gilles stepped down as CEO after two years and went on to head several companies including NTRGlobal, a SaaS company founded in Barcelona, Spain, Fotopedia, Solsoft between 2003 and 2006.
Gilles Samoun, the French Investor
In 2001, Gilles was honored with the position of Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital, now Balderton, one of Europe’s leading tech venture capital firms.
Because of his passion for French tech, he served as board member for numerous tech companies including CipherCloud, Jolicloud, Abiquo, Agiliance, GetApp, KDS, Zenchef and French unicorn Criteo from 2007 to 2011. He is known for being behind Criteo’s revolutionary business model.
Gilles Samoun has invested in French tech companies such as Algolia, Payfit, Spendesk, Agricool, Shine over the last 10 years and was listed among the top seven French tech business angels in Sifted 2021 report, “The French tech revolution”.
Gilles Samoun, Founder of Salesmachine
After driving revenue and market share growth for US and European tech companies for over 20 years, Gilles was set for yet another challenge. In October 2014, he started Salesmachine, a customer success management platform which helps SaaS companies increase conversion and adoption, and prevent churn.
Salesmachine connects with SaaS products and provides product-led teams with the necessary insights and tools to engage with the right product at the right time with the right context.
Gilles Samoun, the Serial Entrepreneur
In October 2022, Gilles started a new company called Successeve, a customer lifecycle management company. Their suite of products help companies increase their growth by converting, retaining and expanding to more customers.
Successeve is a self-financed, profitable company based in Paris and Boston, Kiyv, and many other remote places.
Highlights
- 2001 = Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital, now Balderton, one of Europe’s leading tech venture firms.
- Founded Qualys Inc (went public in 2012), Salesmachine (2014) and Successeve (2022).
- Served as board member for numerous French venture-backed tech startups such as Agiliance, Jolicloud, GetApp among others.
- Invested in French tech companies such as Algolia, Payfit, Spendesk, Agricool etc.
- Drove revenues and market share growth for US and European technology companies for 20+ years.
Best quotes by Gilles Samoun
- “Product-led growth is the future of SaaS”
- “Creating more revenues from existing customers should be easy – because you ought to know them and their needs well. Yet, timing is important, you should be careful not to miss opportunities.”
- “To attract mid-market customers, you need to have a bit of volume but above all allow the customer to test the product”
- “The MRR is the most important metric to measure the effectiveness of your sale”
- “We have divided our customer success team into two folds, we have the high touch customers and the low touch customers. Everything about the low touch customers is essentially automated, and the high touch customers are all about personal interactions.”
- “Growth is not acquisition, it is retention”
