Talk to anyone who has met Lars Dalgaard and you will hear words like "unstoppable force," "visionary" and "extremely passionate." All true, and as of 2009, you can also add "CEO of one of the fastest growing software companies in history."

When Lars founded SuccessFactors in May of 2001, he started with 5 key principles and a vision to create a great software company that delivers unparalleled, measurable value to its customers (to view Lars' founding principles, click here). Nine years later, more than 6.1 million users across 3,100 clients in 185 countries use SuccessFactors' hosted software solutions.

SuccessFactors delivers performance and talent excellence, on demand. The company's software promotes visibility, accountability, and results, enabling organizations to eliminate the politics that destroy motivation and impede performance. "Great companies are defined by the capabilities of their people to link strategy to execution -- we enable those people to achieve breakthrough performance and business execution" says Dalgaard. It's a focus on people that has defined the company's customer success, as well as what has become one of the Best Companies to Work For in the US.

Glenn Solomon, Managing Partner at GGV, had been following Lars' success with his growing company for several years. "When we had the opportunity to lead Lars' expansion round of financing in early 2006, I jumped at the opportunity" says Solomon. "We had to move quickly, and one of GGV's hallmarks is our ability to quickly reach consensus among the partnership and execute on a great opportunity."

In late 2007, the Successfactors IPO on the US NASDAQ exchange was one of the true highlights of what was otherwise a lackluster year for public offerings. Since that time, the company has consistently outperformed its projections, including delivering on profitability sooner than almost any industry analyst had forecast in 2009.

"Working with Glenn has been a true pleasure," says Lars. "It sounds like a cliché, but he's not your 'typical VC' -- he truly gets the key components of the SaaS and cloud computing model, and played a key role in helping us prepare to be a successful public company."

GGV's investment thesis in Successfactors centered around a few key elements: 1) backing a passionate entrepreneur who clearly had what it would take to scale a large and profitable business, 2) a bet on the massive shift taking place from legacy client-server HR and performance management software to SaaS, and 3) the growing recognition among global companies that performance management is a critical element of success.

"Picking the right space is always key, but picking the right management team is even more critical," says Solomon. "In the case of Lars and Successfactors, the company has grown faster than its competitors by a factor of 3X. That's not market lift -- that's a great management team executing on a vision."