David Cancel, one of the legends of B2B software, has announced he is stepping down as CEO of Drift. The co-founder is now Executive Chairman.
Cancel’s replacement is Scott Ernst, who recently joined Drift from the audience measurement firm Cancel and Ernst have a history together, however. They worked together at Compete, one of Cancel’s past startups. And Ernst has also served as an advisor to Drift.
Cancel didn’t offer very many clues on why the change is happening. Neither did he explain why now.
“It has always been a goal of mine for Drift to endure beyond my leadership as CEO, and I am excited to evolve my involvement at a more strategic, visionary level,” Cancel wrote.
Cancel founded Drift in 2015 on a $15 million Series A after leaving Hubspot, where he was chief product officer. Cancel joined Hubspot in 2011 after it acquired his company Performable for $20 million. His Drift co-founder was Elias Torrest was also at Hubspot as its VP of Engineering at the time. And he was Cancel’s co-founder at Performable.
Drift has raised a total of $107 million over the course of its existence.
Inventing a Category
Drift is one of the leading players in the conversational commerce space. It competes to varying degrees with companies like Podium, Zendesk, and Birdeye. These companies have revolutionized the use of messaging technology to deliver customer support. But also, more critically, to transform the B2B sales process.
“Seven years ago, Elias Torres and I started Drift with the goal of making it easier for businesses to buy from businesses,” Cancel said in announcing the leadership change.
“Elias and I created this company with a mission to make digital buying experiences better for B2B buyers, and have been fortunate to not only invent a category, but hire nearly 600 employees across five continents, launch an entire product suite in the Conversation Cloud, and reach unicorn status with a $1.2B valuation. All thanks to our incredible customers, employees, and partners. And we’re poised to transform the ever-changing buying experience yet again, in a world full of uncertainty and empowered consumers.”
Cancel didn’t offer much detail about what happens next for him, beyond kicking himself upstairs to Executive Chairman. That’s not an uncommon move for a founder, by the way. See Jeff Bezos or Howard Shultz, for example. What’s interesting for his successor is that Cancel will be in a position to quickly resume his leadership role should the business falter.
So regarding Drift’s future, he seemed to suggest that the company will continue down the same path, just under new management.
“The Drift vision will stay the same. Our customer-centric philosophy will stay the same. Our guiding leadership principles will stay the same.”
