Veeva was already profitable when it filed to go public in 2013, a rare thing for a young cloud company. It sold software to one industry: life sciences. Its first product, built on top of Salesforce, tracked drug company sales reps' visits to doctors. Then Veeva built its own platform for clinical, quality and regulatory content. It had needed only a small amount of outside capital to get there.

A Salesforce Veteran Narrows In

Peter Gassner, a former Salesforce executive, and Matt Wallach founded Veeva in 2007. They believed a narrow industry focus would let them build deeper products than general software vendors could. Their bet was that pharmaceutical companies would pay well for software that fit their regulated world. Veeva used only a small amount of outside capital. It kept that single-industry focus.

Leaving Salesforce Behind

Veeva priced at $20 a share in October 2013 and jumped on its first day. It kept growing and stayed profitable. In 2021 it became a public benefit corporation, one of the first large public companies to do so. Veeva later moved its customer software off Salesforce and onto its own platform. Peter Gassner remains chief executive, and Veeva remains public.

Cover: Flower Clouds, Odilon Redon. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for flower clouds (cloud for life sciences).