French startup Pigment has raised a new round of funding less than a year after raising a $73 million Series B. If you’re not familiar with Pigment, the company develops a business planning and forecasting platform.
For small businesses that are growing, it can replace Microsoft Excel as it is more secure and generally more robust. For larger companies already using an enterprise planning product from Oracle or SAP, Pigment can replace those legacy platforms with something a little more modern.
The company is calling this new $65 million round a Series B+ because it’s roughly on par with its Series B. While Pigment isn’t disclosing the startup’s valuation, it will increase after today’s deal .
So why did the Pigment rise again so quickly? Because there was an opportunity and because the current economic environment does not look very good. IVP and Meritech Capital lead the round.
Pigment co-founder and CEO Eléonore Crespo told me she didn’t need to raise more money to turn her company into a stable, long-term business. Of course, market conditions could change and Pigment could end up going higher next year.
I also asked if Pigment uses Pigment as a forecasting tool. The answer is yes, obviously.
Pigment connects with the tools your teams already use, including Salesforce, NetSuite, Workday, and Snowflake. Customers use the platform to import, clean and enrich data from these other products. Once the data is entered, you don’t need to enter the same number on multiple sheets, as you can automatically reflect your metrics across the board. Pigment also supports formulas similar to Excel.
This way, Pigment becomes the single source of truth for all the important numbers of the company. As a software-as-a-service product, Pigment customers can also talk to each other directly on the platform.
After that, customers can create “what if” scenarios from different data sets. Executives can change parameters to see the impact of a new product launch, the arrival of a big customer or, unfortunately, a round of layoffs.
Pigment currently has around 170 employees. Annual recurring revenue is growing very well (5x in 6 months) and the company now has 100 customers including Webhelp, PayFit, Forto, Gong, Figma, Carta and ClickUp.
Business planning products are quite relevant right now as businesses need to plan for the worst. Having a tool that allows you to accurately see all important metrics and make big decisions has become essential. And Pigment hopes its platform will set itself apart from other tools in the industry.
Image credits: pigment
