Exclusive: How Pigment, a business-planning startup, raised $65 million in Series B funding from IVP and Meritech Capital without a pitch deck
Summary
Crespo said.Crespo said she believes that with uncertainty around the pandemic, inflation, and energy crises, companies need to be able to accurately forecast revenue and profits to help prepare for many macroeconomic scenarios.She said that as an investor at the venture-capital firm Index Ventures, she saw startups struggle with decisions around spending in an uncertain environment. Users can run projections through boom or bust scenarios that tweak sales or costs by various amounts to see how their financials could change. Pigment also produces metrics such as user retention or customer-acquisition costs that companies can use to measure performance.Pigment which competes against software companies like SAP, Oracle, Workday, and Anaplan raised $73 million in Series B funding led by Greenoaks in November. Crespo told Insider that the company hadnt been planning to raise additional funding but was contacted by IVP and Meritech, which had heard about Pigment from customers. Crespo said.Crespo said that while some startups may raise minimal capital early on to avoid investor dilution and release a basic product they add features to over time, Pigment did the opposite: It invested in research and development using a hefty Series A round to create a more comprehensive platform, helping it gain traction with early customers.Crespo said she believes that creating a product with strong market demand is increasingly important in an economic downturn where companies are looking to reduce the tech tools they use.