Simpplr, a provider of intranet software to companies, raised $10 million in Series B extension funding to help those companies engage with and manage employees, especially those now working remotely.
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The company’s platform uses artificial intelligence to alert employees to critical top-down communications, helps them find relevant and knowledge-based documents, and keeps them socially connected to co-workers.
The financing was led by existing investor Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, 1 also an existing investor. Including the new investment, Redwood City, California-based Simpplr has raised a total of $30 million since it was founded in 2014. The company has raised its Series B in various tranches, those most recent include $6 million in June and $5 million in 2019, Dhiraj Sharma, founder and CEO of Simpplr, told Crunchbase News.
Innovating the intranet
The company will use the new funding for, the most part, to accelerate product innovation, but also plans to continue its go-to market expansion and extend its partner ecosystem.
“We want to show the value the intranet can bring, and we are starting on the journey,” Sharma said. “Our belief is that if you have the right product at the right time for the right customers, you don’t need to spend much on go-to-market, so most of our spending will be on product innovation.”
Simpplr has also added some new features, including an auto-governance engine—which the company touts as the industry’s first—using AI technology to ensure that intranet content is up-to-date, relevant and useful. It also made enhancements to its Adaptive Personalization product that takes into account user information such as role, department, location and previous searches to only provide relevant information.
Personalization and integration are two areas Simpplr plans to do a deeper dive into. Sharma sees Netflix as a role model, a company which provides a unique user experience based on what is watched. He wants to do the same for Simpplr, where the platform finds and provides users what they should know, as well as more app integrations, now that Simpplr is attracting more enterprise customers, he added.
Meanwhile, more than 200 customers are already using Simpplr’s platform, growing the company’s 2019 annual recurring revenue by 130 percent.
“Last year was an amazing year, and due to COVID-19, we are seeing a renewed interest in the marketplace as companies realize how critical it is for remote employee engagement and management,” Sharma said. “We think the next two to three years will be the best years for us in terms of growth.”
What investors have to say
Simpplr board member Promod Haque, senior managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners, said the company has developed an intranet for the modern workplace.
“Their approach to revolutionizing the intranet will deliver significant business value to employers by engaging employees in ways that boost productivity and improve communications, especially in the work-from-home environment,” he added.
Meanwhile, Matt Garratt, managing partner at Salesforce Ventures, said he is looking forward to working with the company as it enters the next phase of its growth.
“The company offers dozens of no-code integrations with best-in-class cloud products like Salesforce, and will help push the industry forward toward a better employee experience,” he added.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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