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Salesforce Challenger Creatio Hits Unicorn Status with $200 Million Funding

Salesforce Challenger Creatio Hits Unicorn Status with $200 Million Funding

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Creatio, a low-code software platform for customer relationship management (CRM), has emerged as a formidable competitor to industry giant Salesforce. On Wednesday, the company announced that it had secured $200 million in a new funding round, catapulting its valuation to $1.2 billion and earning it the coveted “unicorn” status. This significant milestone underscores Creatio’s rapid growth and the increasing demand for low-code solutions in the business sector.

A Rapid Ascent

Salesforce Challenger Creatio Hits Unicorn Status with $200 Million Funding

Image Source: viestories.com

Founded in 2014, Creatio has swiftly established itself in the CRM market, employing 700 people across seven global offices, including key locations in Poland and Ukraine. Despite its relatively short history, the company has managed to attract an impressive roster of clients, including major enterprises such as Coca-Cola and MetLife. 

The latest funding round was spearheaded by Sapphire Ventures, with additional participation from StepStone Group and existing investors Volition Capital and Horizon Capital. This influx of capital follows several years of impressive revenue growth for Creatio, with annual increases of around 50%.

Katherine Kostereva, the founder and CEO of Creatio, expressed optimism about the company’s financial health and future prospects. “Creatio’s underlying low-code automation platform provides this freedom to automate your workflows on the fly,” Kostereva noted. She emphasized that the company is cash flow break-even and capital efficient, attributing their success to their innovative platform and strategic management.

Strategic Growth and Technological Innovation

Creatio’s journey to becoming a unicorn has been marked by strategic growth and technological innovation. After years of bootstrapping, the company raised $68 million in 2021. This latest funding round is set to accelerate its product development further, with a particular focus on integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance automation in marketing and sales-related tasks.

Rajeev Dham, managing director at Sapphire Ventures, highlighted Creatio’s distinctive approach in the low-code market. “They aren’t just a general-purpose no-code platform. They are no-code with an architecturally flexible backend, while focusing on a pretty big market,” Dham said. This strategic focus on specific business processes sets Creatio apart from other low-code and no-code startups, which have seen a cooling down from the funding frenzy of 2021.

Also Read: EU Hits Microsoft with Antitrust Charges for Teams Bundling

Future Outlook

Despite not yet turning a profit, Creatio’s robust revenue growth and strategic positioning have positioned it well for future success. The company plans to leverage the new funding to enhance its technological capabilities and expand its market reach. By focusing on specific business processes and maintaining control over its strategy, Creatio aims to continue its rapid ascent in the competitive CRM market.

As low-code platforms continue to gain traction, Creatio’s success story serves as a testament to the potential of targeted innovation and strategic growth. With its recent funding and the continued support of its investors, Creatio is well on its way to becoming a major player in the CRM industry.

Falguni Nayar

Falguni Nayar: India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire

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In the current modern times, women like Falguni Nayar are making noteworthy participation in the entrepreneurial network of India. Our country brags about successful businesswomen all over the world. Women-led startups offer about 35% higher ROI in comparison with the businesses led by men.

Falguni Nayar
Image Source: newsbytesapp.com

Women entrepreneurs play an important role in increasing job opportunities, wealth, and the nation’s development. The rich list has seen a rise in self-made entrepreneurs this year. Many she-preneurs have made it to the list during the current year increasing the number of women bosses from 13 to 55.

“What makes the Indian wealth creation story truly inspirational is that 67 percent of the list is self-made, up from 54 percent five years ago. Also, 79 percent of the new faces this year are self-made as well,” Anas Rahman Junaid, MD, and Chief Researcher, Hurun India stated. “The wealth creation engine of first-generation entrepreneurs and professional managers is on full throttle and is an important driver for India’s GDP to swiftly reach the $5 trillion mark”, He added.

“It is exhilarating to see the entrepreneurial ecosystem of India contribute a significant amount to this list with the rising number of women entrepreneurs and uptick in self-made entrepreneurs,” Co-Founder & Joint CEO, IIFL Wealth, Yatin Shah, stated.

Source: businesstoday.in

The
IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022 has become a little more
inclusive in the present year. Founder and chief executive officer of
Nykaa, Falguni Nayar, has surpassed ‘biotech queen’ and Biocon
founder, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (Net worth Rs. 24,800), to become the
richest self-made woman in India and the seventh women billionaire on
that list after a mega listing of her beauty and wellness e-commerce
platform Nykaa.

Nykaa
is India’s first Unicorn startup led by a woman. It was founded by
Falguni Nayar in 2012, selling beauty and personal care products via
its mobile app and website. Nykaa, which is a Sanskrit word for the
actress, became quite popular with young techno-geek Indians, mostly
women, who opt for the wide selection of brands in comparison with
what was on offer at their local shops.

The 59-year-old Falguni Nayar became the second largest wealth gainer this year with an increase of 345 percent in her wealth after the businessman Ravi Modi of Vedant Fashions.

At the listing ceremony on Wednesday, Nayar said, “I hope the Nykaa journey – an Indian-born, Indian-owned, and Indian-managed dream-come-true – can inspire each of you.”

“The best part about Nykaa is that it lets me access so many global brands that had never been sold in India before,” said 30-year-old loyal customer Sanaeya to the AFP news agency.

Source: hindustantimes.com

Her rank increased by 169 positions to the 33rd spot and Her wealth ranked up by 345 percent, which is about 30,000 Crore INR in the previous year, to report a net worth of Rs. 38,700 Crore. Also, she ranks 5th in the Top 10 biggest gainers list. Nykaa’s wealth has increased by 1,388 percent in five years.

The e-commerce platform has also invested in a few companies this year. It declared the acquisition of an 18 percent stake in clean beauty brand Earth Rhythm for 42 Crore INR and a 60 percent stake in Nudge Wellness for 4 crore INR.

Nykaa’s popularity has increased and so did its brand appeal, with top Bollywood actors such as Katrina Kaif and other renowned social media influencers, and celebrities supporting the e-commerce platform breaking new ground in makeup carts and skincare for tech-savvy Indian women. The brand also developed its in-house brand of products in 2015 and start selling clothes and household products recently. It has a highly increasing street presence with 80 stores in over 40 Indian cities.

Mercari

Mercari – A Japanese e-Commerce Company That Became The Country’s First Unicorn.

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Shintaro Yamada, a famous Japanese businessman founded Mercari, a Japanese e-commerce platform in 2013. The business was started in Japan, but it eventually entered the United States after a few years. So, currently, it serves two markets because in 2018 the European branch of Mercari was shut down as a “temporary retreat.” The present CEO of the company is Shintaro Yamada who has been holding the position since 2013. The mobile application of Mercari is a big hit among the Japanese people for two main reasons, security and ease to use. The Mercari marketplace app is the largest community-powered marketplace in Japan. Transactions worth more than 10 billion JPY are carried out on this platform every month. 

Early Days

When Mercari was officially launched in Japan, it had competitors like Yahoo!. But the reason why Japanese people rapidly accepted the usage of Mercari was some of its unique features that increased the convenience of the customers. Back in February 2013 when Yamada founded Mercari, its original name was Kouzoh, Inc. After a few months, the mobile app of the company for both Android and iOS devices was launched. It was shocking to witness that more than a million people signed in for this online shopping platform within a year. 

When Yamada decided to build the app, he planned to develop something similar to an online flea market. So, the features that were added in Mercari were well-thought and implemented. For example, putting up an item online for sale can be a rather lengthy and tiresome process and it requires to be done from a computer. Since It was developed mainly for smartphones, the selling process through this platform became a lot easier. Many Japanese people were attracted to Mercari due to this reason, especially who didn’t own a personal computer. Mercari increased the scope of customer-to-customer market service among the Japanese population. 

Mercari
Image source: prnewswire.com

Growth & Expansion

From the very beginning, the growth of Mercari has been spectacular. After a year, Mercari witnessed approximately 4.5 million people using the app and more than 100,000 new items getting listed on a daily basis. The total transaction per day also exceeded $10 million. As the company was becoming the hype, it attracted investors including Global Brain Corporation, Globis Capital Partners, World Innovation Lab, East Ventures, and many more. Due to its early and rapid growth, Mercari was taken into the international market (United States) in 2014. The company expanded so soon in the international market due to high funding (raised $75 million in Series D funding). 

After a couple of years in 2016, Company reached the $1 billion mark and became Japan’s first startup to gain unicorn status. This was a very big achievement in the startup community of Japan inspiring the people to come up with more innovative ideas. After expanding to the United States, the company’s next target was the UK but the European market of Mercari was closed shortly after its opening. This happened because the company was unaware of the local conditions there and thus the idea to launch Mercari in the European market backfired. As the company became bigger, it decided to go public in 2018 and offered its IPO. After the IPO, the company’s valuation became $7.4 billion. The company was also named “Best App” by Google Play for two consecutive years. 

Shintaro Yamada – Founder & CEO of Mercari

Being the CEO and founder of Mercari, Shintaro Yamada currently owns one-third of the company. Yamada started his career with Rakuten, a little e-commerce company that he joined as an intern. While he was in Rakuten, he developed an auction website for the company and he started getting rough ideas about the company’s operations and how an e-commerce company functions. After a few years, he decided to start his own venture and founded Mercari. 

Zeta Global

Zeta Global – A Marketing Tech Startup That Has Received Unicorn Status.

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Zeta Global is a US-based company specializing in data-driven marketing technology. It is a new company that was founded fourteen years ago in 2007. The headquarters of the company is based in New York City and it focuses on offering multichannel marketing tools to its customers. David A. Steinberg and John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple co-founded Zeta Global. Back in 2007, it was established under the name of “XL Marketing” and its name became Zeta Global in October 2016.

About Zeta Global

Zeta’s marketing platform is used by some of the largest companies in the world to grow and retain customers at an affordable rate. When Zeta was founded, it was established with the idea that it should be able to offer solutions to a complexity arising from managing multiple vendors across various channels. All these vendors provide different points of solution like automation, customer data management (CDM), omnichannel engagement, etc. So, Zeta was founded to bring all these solutions under one roof by developing very intelligent software.

The platform of Zeta is not only about growth and bringing in more audience, but also strengthening the relationship between existing customers. Today, after Google and Facebook, Zeta Global has the third-largest dataset in the entire world that is powered by various demographics, behavioral, locational, etc factors. Zeta Global started trading publicly in 2021 at a $1.7 billion valuation. The company has a presence in 11 countries including India.

Zeta Global
Image source: www.nyse.com

History of the Company

XL Marketing was established in 2007 and its name was changed to Zeta Interactive in 2014 followed by the current brand, Zeta Global in 2016. Within the first ten years of the company, Zeta acquired nine other companies. In 2013, it acquired the Adchemy Actions division of a parent ad tech firm, Adchemy. This acquisition helped Zeta have access to Adchemy’s machine learning-based advertising platform. Next year Zeta acquired a Boston-based company called Clicksquared that offered a SaaS-based campaign management platform.

To grow the company through more acquisitions, Zeta raised $125 million from Blackstone’s GSO Capital Partners. With this funding, Zeta mainly focused on acquiring data startup companies. Later in that year, Zeta acquired eBay’s customer relationship management division and this deal was worth $80-$90 million. Steinberg, after the acquisition, made a statement that this deal would help them become the largest customer lifecycle management platform. In August 2016, Zeta bought “Acxiom Impact”, a market automation tool for $50 million from the parent company, Acxiom. Later in that year, the company also hired a new CFO, Jarrod Yahes who was a former executive at EXL Service Holdings.

Recent Events

In 2017, Zeta hired Donald Steele as the company’s CRO. This was the first time in ten years that the company hired for this position. In a debt funding round in April 2017, Zeta raised $140 million from GPI Capital and Franklin Square Capital Partners. After this funding round, the company’s total valuation became $1.3 billion. In the same year, Zeta acquired two new companies, Boomtrain, an ML platform, and Disqus. In the past three years also Zeta acquired several ad tech companies including Temnos, Sizmek, etc. In March 2021, the company raised $222.5 million after which it announced that it will file its first IPO. Currently, it is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Awards & Accolades

It has been featured in many top-rated magazines and websites. Zeta was featured in the Forbes Most Promising Company in 2014 followed by in the list of Forbes “Top 100 Analytics Startups of 2015.” In 2017, Zeta was ranked as “Visionary” in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Hubs.

David A. Steinberg – CEO of Zeta Global

David Steinberg is famous as a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies including Zeta Global. David’s net worth is approximately around $750 million. In 1993, he founded his first company, Sterling Cellular from the basement of his house. And, before co-founding Zeta, there were other two companies, namely, Inphonic and CAIVIS Acquisition Corp. David went to Washington & Jefferson College.

Datto

Austin McChord, Started by making the device in the parent’s basement to get the “Unicorn” status.

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Austin McChord, a software programmer, created Datto in 2007 in Connecticut. In 2017, the company was merged with Autotask Corporation and it became a subsidiary of Vista Equity Partners. Based in the software sector, Datto specializes in cybersecurity and data backup. Currently, the company has approximately 1,600 members and is led by Tim Weller (CEO of Datto). The company is known for developing both hardware and software products required for data recovery purposes. Datto started expanding to international markets in 2013 and currently, it has customers across the globe.

About Datto

Datto is a leading provider of cloud-based software and security products that are delivered by managed service providers. Datto’s solutions in various domains help its network of MSP Partners serve more than a million businesses worldwide. The products developed by Datto help the MSPs to protect both small and medium-sized businesses against threats.

Datto offers subscription-based pricing models so that there are multiple choices for different types of customers. But, the main focus of Datto is to enable MSP growth. When Austin McChord established Datto he used to sell self-made data backup devices. From that to becoming a unicorn, Datto has grown massively in a few years.

Datto
Image source: techtalk.needonsite.com

The Backstory of the Company

The idea of building a data recovery company came to Austin’s mind when he first developed a backup device in his parent’s basement. He used a LEGO brick to complete the first iteration of the product. After successfully building the backup device, Austin went ahead with the plan of founding Datto and thus started selling hand-made data backup devices. He landed his first customer in 2008 and eventually he was able to build a system that would allow data synchronization between two companies. Later, he successfully built a version of Zenith Infotech.

The sales started increasing slowly and by the end of 2009, the company made $70,000 in monthly sales. In 2010, Datto released a new product but unfortunately, it led to the crash of old computer systems. So, a replacement product was built from scratch to replace the new one and it was called SIRIS. The sales of the company were pretty much stagnant during this period and the company finally rolled out SIRIS as a free upgrade. In 2011, the sales started increasing rapidly and hit $9 million and the next year it increased to $25 million.

Success and Expansion

The funding round of the company started in 2013. In the first round of venture capital financing, Datto raised $25 million. This round was led by General Catalyst Partners. By this time also the company was focusing on various small and medium-sized businesses with clients such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure and several NFL teams. In 2014, Datto purchased a cloud-to-cloud backup company called Backupify. In 2015, the company’s series B funding round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures and it was able to raise $75 million. In the same year, the company also gained the “unicorn” status and became the only company in Connecticut to earn it. After the series B funding round, the company expanded to the Australian and New Zealand markets.

The acquisitions continued as in early 2017 the company acquired Open Mesh. Later in that year, the company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners and the deal was closed for approximately $1.5 billion. The company then merged with Autotask Corporation and Austin became the CEO of the merged company. But he stepped down from his position in 2018 and his place was taken by Tim Weller. In 2020, Datto became a public company and sold 22 million shares to raise $594 million in its IPO.

Austin McChord – Founder of Datto

Austin McChord is a computer engineer and an entrepreneur who became famous after founding Datto. He initially pursued electrical engineering at the Rochester University of Technology. When he was 21-year old, he developed a data backup device from scratch in his father’s basement. Initially, when the company was landing its first few customers, he received a buyout offer for $100 million but turned it down. Instead, he tried to raise some funding and strengthen the foundation of the company.