SAP’s $8 billion acquisition of SurveyMonkey competitor Qualtrics has breathed new life into the survey software space, Zander Lurie, the CEO of SurveyMonkey parent SVMK Inc., told CNBC on Wednesday.
“SAP’s a big company, and I think this $8 billion acquisition validated just how big this category is,” Lurie told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in an exclusive interview. “This is a multi-multi-billion-dollar global category. There are hundreds of thousands of organizations who need to buy enterprise software to measure the sentiment of their employees [and] their customers.”
Speaking after SVMK’s third-quarter earnings report sent shares of the software provider up over 13 percent in Wednesday’s trading session, Lurie added that he was “all in favor” of the price SAP paid for Qualtrics.
Qualtrics, a direct SurveyMonkey competitor, was reportedly planning to go public at a value of roughly $6 billion before SAP stepped in. Now, Qualtrics’ $8 billion price tag may make investors think twice about how to value SVMK, which currently has a $1.6 billion market cap.
SAP’s size also didn’t seem to worry the SVMK chief, who said on “Mad Money” that even Alphabet’s Google, which offers its own data-collection software, “is not a competitor.”
“If you look at our competitor [Qualtrics] here, they’re going to be a division of SAP, a large European company,” he told Cramer. “We’re steering into where Microsoft and Salesforce and Adobe and Google have real market leadership. I think, from a cultural standpoint, it’s going to be a real advantage for us.”
Salesforce Ventures invested in SVMK at the initial public offering price of $12 a share, close to where the stock closed on Wednesday. The support has proved lucrative for SVMK, which is “going to school on [Salesforce.com chief Marc] Benioff’s playbook” and partnering with the cloud giant’s customers on product development, Lurie said.
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Alphabet, Microsoft and Salesforce.
Questions for Cramer?
Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBCWant to take a deep dive into Cramer’s world? Hit him up!
Mad Money Twitter – Jim Cramer Twitter – Facebook – Instagram – VineQuestions, comments, suggestions for the “Mad Money” website? madcap@cnbc.com
