Interview with Zapier CEO on Sequoia and Steadfast Financial's January investment via secondary market, acquiring no-code education business Makerpad, and more
Zapier CEO Wade Foster avoids thinking about fundraising as much as possible. Profitable for years, his startup …
Context & Ripple Effects
In January, Sequoia bought founder shares in Zapier on the secondary market at a $4B+ valuation, with Steadfast Financial joining — a bet on a company Forbes notes has been profitable for years, which is precisely why CEO Wade Foster says he avoids thinking about fundraising at all. This interview is the founder's side of that story.
The same conversation covers Zapier acquiring Makerpad, a no-code education business, extending an automation platform into teaching people how to automate. The arc matters because Zapier later surfaced as one of the first third-party ChatGPT plugin partners alongside Slack and Shopify — a position built on exactly this connective-tissue role.
First-order effects
- Founders convert paper value to liquidity without an IPO or new primary round, while Sequoia and Steadfast Financial gain exposure to a profitable, $4B+ automation company through secondary shares rather than priced preferred stock.
- Makerpad's no-code education audience becomes an owned top-of-funnel for Zapier, shifting customer acquisition from paid marketing toward teaching automation skills.
Second-order effects
- Competing automation and workflow tools now face an incumbent that funds growth from profits and buys education channels instead of burning venture capital on ads — pressuring them to match either the profitability or the content moat.
- Secondary-market deals at headline valuations give late-stage firms like Sequoia a way into hot private companies, tightening competition with primary-round investors for the best cash-flowing startups.
Third-order effects
- If profitable startups can fund themselves via secondaries and bolt-on acquisitions, the IPO path stays optional longer — echoing Andreessen's earlier argument that higher private valuations are slowing tech public offerings.
- Zapier's trajectory — automation platform, then education arm, then AI plugin partner — points toward the workflow-integration layer becoming the contested ground where AI assistants meet business apps.
The trend: Profitable automation companies are using secondary sales and capability acquisitions rather than primary fundraising to scale, keeping control with founders while investors buy in at full price.