Led · Series B · Apr 2017

Lucid operates a programmatic market research platform, including Fulcrum, its automated sample marketplace, that enables marketers to test ads and survey consumers with speed and scale. Founder and CEO Patrick Comer says the company is used by more than 500 customers and that revenue has grown 70 percent year-over-year for the past three years. The company rebranded from Federated Sample in 2015 as its offerings expanded. Lucid positions itself as a programmatic disruptor that complements platforms like SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics by supplying audiences to take surveys on those platforms. It already has offices in London and Delhi and is headquartered in New Orleans. With new funding Lucid plans to expand its own presence across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to become the number one player in market research. Federated Sample’s flagship product, Fulcrum, is an enterprise sample management platform and white‑label routing solution that automates sample delivery via proprietary APIs connecting to panel companies and data collection software. The company offers an optimization engine and routing tools that let customers use proprietary panels to reduce dependence on third‑party sample providers, improving margins and deliverability. Federated Sample is developing realtime validation from public records to verify respondents without collecting personally identifiable information. It already counts three of the top five market research firms as clients, has 3.5 million respondents available per month, and reported revenue growth of 200% year‑over‑year for this quarter. The startup will use new capital to roll out additional Fulcrum features and ramp up hiring across all divisions.

Led · Equity · Apr 2016

Erecruit provides enterprise staffing software, vendor management system (VMS) and onboarding solutions for large staffing firms and employers. The company is led by CEO Dave Perotti and is based in Boston, MA. It plans to use new funding to accelerate product development, improve customer experience and expand global sales and marketing. In 2015 Erecruit made software improvements in functionality, scalability and performance. Those improvements produced a record number of wins with the largest staffing companies in North America. The company reported more than a 100% year-over-year revenue increase following those wins. erecruit is a Boston, MA-based provider of enterprise staffing software and vendor management systems (VMS) for large staffing firms. The company offers an enterprise software platform that streamlines staffing firms’ operations by integrating front, middle and back office functions, including sales and client relationship management, recruitment, search & match, onboarding, time and expense management, pay/bill and reporting. Its solution is accessible from any browser on any device and integrates with dozens of web applications to maximize efficiency. erecruit is led by Co-CEO Judd Hoffman. The business plans to use new funding to accelerate growth by adding to its team and further investing in product innovation. No operating metrics or past financings were disclosed in the article.

Led · Equity · Feb 2016

OutSystems provides a low-code application development platform that combines visual programming with the ability to add code for complex, extensible corporate apps. The company positions low-code as better suited than no-code for heavy-duty internal workflows and extensibility. It sells its platform on a consumption-oriented pricing model based on platform utilization, with seat limits on lower tiers. OutSystems said it is increasing both R&D and go-to-market capacity and is investing for growth while aiming to build scale efficiently. The company is privately held, was founded in 2001, and is Portugal- and U.S.-based. Management characterized its business model as “efficient” and suggested the new funding puts the company on a potential IPO path. OutSystems offers an open, rapid application delivery platform that enables developers to build applications once and deploy across iOS, Android, Windows Phone and the web. The company was founded in 2001 and is based between Atlanta, London and Lisbon, maintaining a large team in Lisbon while now headquartered in Atlanta. OutSystems operates in 52 locations worldwide and serves over 400 enterprise organizations in 25 countries, with clients including Toyota, Logitech, Deloitte, Ricoh, Schneider Electric and GM Financial. The platform is positioned to address the slow speed and lack of agility of traditional software development and support customers' digital transformation initiatives. The $360M investment from KKR and Goldman Sachs is presented as growth capital that moves the company into the unicorn realm. Previous backers include Portugal Ventures and Armilar Venture Partners. OutSystems offers a graphical low-code development platform that enables enterprise developers to quickly build applications and integrate with third-party systems such as SAP, Salesforce.com and Workday. The platform generates code that developers can extend when needed, although many use cases require no hand-coding. The company serves over 600 enterprise customers and works with more than 130 partners across 33 countries. OutSystems was founded in 2001 and has spent over 16 years improving its low-code technology. Management says the company's financial situation has been very strong, and it raised new capital to capitalize on an exploding low-code market and to defend its market position as competition increases. Planned uses for the new funding include working capital and to fuel global sales, marketing, and product innovation with a focus on the US market and the developer community.

Led · Equity · Aug 2015

Spoonflower operates an on-demand digital printing service and a marketplace for unique designs created by independent artists, selling custom-printed fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap. The company launched in 2008 and is headquartered in Durham. Spoonflower currently employs 150 people in Durham. It intends to use new funding to introduce additional product offerings. The company is planning to open an office in Berlin, Germany. The articles do not disclose revenue or other operating metrics.

Led · Equity · Mar 2015

WP Engine provides managed WordPress hosting and a broader Digital Experience Platform that combines infrastructure, analytics, security, and support for developers, marketers and enterprise digital teams. The platform integrates with services such as AWS and Google Cloud Platform and claims to power roughly 5% of all internet visits. WP Engine says WordPress accounts for 29% of the internet and that it is the largest WordPress host among the 1,000,000 most‑trafficked sites. The company reports more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue and over 75,000 customers, a customer base that grew about 30% in the prior year. WP Engine is using recent capital to continue product development and expand internationally. To date the Austin, Texas–based company has raised around $290 million including the latest round. WP Engine is a managed WordPress platform that provides hosting and related services to bloggers, marketers, small and medium businesses, and enterprises. Founded in 2010, the company hosts about 300,000 sites and applications across 128 countries and counts customers such as Pabst Brewing, AMD and Uber. WP Engine has added platform features such as HHVM support and has launched new products through its Labs program. Over the past year the company doubled its headcount and opened offices in London and San Antonio. It plans to use new funding to fuel international expansion and accelerate enterprise adoption, which the company says will include expanding sales and marketing efforts. WordPress powers more than 20 percent of all internet sites, underscoring the market opportunity available to the company. The company has raised $23 million in the latest follow-on round, bringing total funding to date to $41.2 million. WP Engine operates a hosting platform that specializes in running WordPress sites. The company serves about 14,000 customers who host over 120,000 unique sites and domains that receive roughly 36 million unique visitors per day. It reported threefold year-over-year revenue growth last year, expects to double revenue this year, and has grown about 25% every quarter since inception. WP Engine has about 100 employees and plans to double headcount by the end of the year; it currently has offices in Austin and San Francisco and plans to open its first international office in Europe in 2015. The company plans to invest in product innovation, building new tools for customers and bringing internal tools to users, with a continued focus on making WordPress faster, more scalable, and more secure. It recently acquired the hosting business of Crowd Favorite as a user-acquisition move. WP Engine launched in July 2010 as an enterprise‑level hosting service for WordPress.org users who want to avoid managing servers and IT themselves. The platform focuses on fast page load times and the ability to scale when sites receive heavy traffic. WP Engine provides a managed CDN for static content, full daily backups, a complimentary staging area, and consultation on themes and plugins. Monthly plans start at $50 per month and the company reports an install base of over 30,000 personal and professional WordPress blogs. The company recently raised $1.2 million in new funding led by Silverton Partners, and Automattic also made a strategic investment. Proceeds are earmarked for scaling the product, recruiting, and ramping up partner relations; WP Engine is the launch partner for Automattic’s VIP Support for Web Hosts program.