Company name: Qualtrics
Headquarters: Provo, Utah
Funding to date: $220 million in two rounds
Qualtrics offers software for doing sophisticated surveys, market research, and analysis. It sprang into the Valley spotlight in 2012, when the tech world discovered that this family startup had bootstrapped its way to big growth and profitability.
At one point, its young 30-something CEO, Ryan Smith, had an acquisition offer of $500 million in one hand and seven term sheets from major VC firms in the other. He turned down the offer and decided to grow the company himself.
Smith founded the startup with his brother, Jared, an early Google employee. With Jared as COO, the company grew to over 1,200 employees and 8,000 customers, including Boeing, Microsoft, Spotify, and Under Armour. Investors valued it at over $1 billion.
Jared has stepped away for the moment, and Qualtrics has hired Microsoft exec Zig Serafin as COO as it gets ready for an initial public offering.