Klipfolio has kicked off the new year by landing a $12-million series-B financing round that the Ottawa-based company says will help it hire dozens of new employees.
The firm’s latest funding round was led by OMERS Ventures and included all the investors from Klipfolio’s previous series-A round in 2015 and its seed round in 2014.
It brings the company’s total to-date funding to $19.4 million.
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Klipfolio offers a cloud-based software that allows users to build their own business dashboards that displays key metrics for their firm. It’s doubled its customer base each year since it first received financing in 2014 and now serves more than 7,000 customers globally, up from 4,000 one year ago.
Klipfolio will be looking to carry that momentum into the new year after a “spectacular” 2016, and the new funding will help make that happen, CEO Allan Wille told OBJ.
Mr. Wille said the company will be investing in three key areas in 2017: Product content and efficiency, ease of use and scalability. The company will be looking to add features to its software while maintaining stability and performance, he said.
“There is a massive number of small- and mid-sized businesses that need help controlling and understanding the metrics that matter most to them,” he said.“As we move up, that whole side of the infrastructure is a part that we really need to make sure scales properly.”
Klipfolio also plans to increase its headcount. The firm currently employs 68 full-time workers and will be looking to add 40 to 45 new employees this year.
“Hiring will be a big thing for us in 2017 … so that’s something that’s pretty exciting, and something we definitely want to make sure Ottawa knows about,” Mr. Wille added.
In addition to OMERS Ventures, the other investors were BDC Capital, Mistral Venture Partners, Fundfire, BOLDstart Ventures, Acadia Woods and Converge Venture Partners.
“Klipfolio serves an important role in the market, offering businesses of all sizes access to real-time data – something that was previously readily available to just ‘the big guys’ with much larger resources,” Damien Steel of OMERS Ventures said in a statement. “Their ability to make critical data accessible in a user-friendly, affordable platform empowers even the smallest of businesses to make smart, data-driven decisions.”
Founded in 2001 and bootstrapped for more than a decade, Klipfolio credits its rapid growth over the past three years in part to the decision to take on venture-capital financing.
“Every round of financing has allowed us to get to that next level,” said Mr. Wille. “The number of customers, the value and depth of our product, how we differentiate and how we’re targeting specific customers – looking back, the funding has dramatically increased the speed at which we’ve been able to accomplish all those things.”
