Paris-headquartered startup Pigment has secured a $145 million funding round just five years after its establishment. The company specializes in enterprise software, offering a business planning platform designed for large corporations to visualize their historical financial performance and forecast future quarters.
This funding round is somewhat unexpected given the scarcity of large rounds in France recently. According to a recent study by EY, funding rounds in the French tech ecosystem experienced a 38% decline in 2023 compared to the previous year. However, when excluding high-profile AI startups like Mistral AI and non-tech startups with capital-intensive infrastructure such as EV charging networks (Driveco) and EV battery factories (Verkor), funding rounds have seen a significant decrease. Pure software startups, in particular, have faced challenging times.
Pigment stands out as an exception with its Series D round. Iconiq Growth, an existing investor, is reaffirming its commitment by leading this new funding round. Other participants include Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, IVP, Meritech, Greenoaks, and Felix Capital, many of whom were also existing investors.
The reason behind Pigment’s ability to raise a substantial amount at a notably higher valuation less than a year after its previous funding round lies in its impressive performance. In 2023, the startup tripled its revenue and doubled its customer base, attracting well-known clients such as Unilever, Datadog, Kayak, and Merck. Half of Pigment’s clients are based in the United States.
Co-founder and co-CEO Éléonore Crespo revealed, “Our current investors offered us favorable terms for an internal round, anticipating our future fundraising needs to scale with other investors. Everything happened swiftly—within a week, the deal was sealed.” Prior to Pigment, Crespo had experience at VC firm Index Ventures and Google. She co-founded Pigment with Romain Niccoli, who previously co-founded adtech startup Criteo—an early success story in the French tech landscape.
Crespo added, “IVP, one of our backers, benchmarks the growth rate of all SaaS companies. Since our product launch, we’ve consistently ranked in the top 5% of SaaS companies with the highest revenue growth rate.”
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