Xactly existed because companies kept getting their salespeople's pay wrong. Many still tracked commissions in spreadsheets, which led to errors and disputes. Xactly's cloud software calculated pay automatically, showed reps their earnings and gave managers data on which plans worked. When it filed to go public in 2015, it was one of a wave of cloud companies that each sold to a single business department. Xactly's department was sales.

A Sales Leader's Grievance

Christopher Cabrera founded Xactly in 2005 after years in sales leadership. He had seen how much time and trust companies lost to commission mistakes. His bet was that a cloud service could make pay accurate and clear. The data it gathered across many companies would then become valuable on its own. Xactly called this incentive compensation management and sold it to companies of many sizes.

Two Quiet Public Years

Xactly priced at $8 a share in June 2015, below its expected range. The stock traded quietly for two years as the company grew. In 2017 Vista Equity Partners bought Xactly for about $564 million and took it private. It was one of several small public software firms Vista bought in that period. Xactly kept going as a private company focused on sales pay, planning and forecasting.

Cover: Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for instruments of measure (precision).