Raising money is one of the most challenging aspects of being a startup founder. After all, you're asking people to believe in your vision, invest money into your company and stay with you through ups and downs. Now more than ever, it’s extremely difficult to move from a seed round to a Series A -- which it makes it all the more impressive when it happens.
One company that recently made the jump is Spendflo, an all-in-one SaaS buying and management solution. They announced their Series A led by Prosus Ventures and Accel and comes only ten months after its seed round.
The company experienced a hockey-stick growth trajectory since its inception and has grown 30% month on month since the start of 2022, multiplying its revenue 15 times, growing its customer count by 5X, and expanding the team size fourfold.
Talking to Siddharth Sridharan, CEO and Co-founder, let’d dig in more on their recent accomplishments.
SE: Congratulations on your Series A. It’s never been more difficult for startups to move from the seed to Series A stage. What do you think sets you apart during this time?
SS: Spendflo is an all-in-one solution that solves challenges at every stage of the SaaS procurement lifecycle including buying, management, and security. Every other alternative in the market remains a point solution focusing on just one of the three major challenges, resulting in three times the cost, effort, and resources involved for a business to tackle one problem.
Moreover, juggling between three different systems to solve one problem is counterintuitive to the goal of saving time and money for fast-growing businesses.
Spendflo remains the truly complete solution that helps modern businesses buy, manage and secure SaaS on autopilot. Seamless sharing of data between its SaaS buying, management, and security hubs streamlines SaaS buying, automates workflows, accelerates buying cycles, and saves up to 30% of a company’s annual SaaS expenses.
As companies grapple with mounting SaaS expenses and try to be more efficient and productive, Spendflo addresses the need of the hour perfectly.
SE: Saas spends are typically one of the top 5 expenses of any company. How did you identify this as an issue and recognize you could make an impact?
SS: Spendflo was founded in 2021 while I was running business operations at the Californian electric vehicle charging company, Volta Charging. Every quarter, my CFO would complain to me that we were spending too much on SaaS solutions, but I didn’t know who owned the contracts or how they were using them. I got so fed up and realized I couldn’t be the only one with this problem.
So I teamed up with co-founders Ajay Vardhan and Rajiv Ramanan to commercialize a solution. Spendflo essentially solves three problems: 1. The lack of visibility 2. The sheer chaos caused by multiple stakeholders involved in the buying, negotiation, and renewal processes 3. Price and usage opacity of their SaaS stack
With Spendflo, companies can now track all of their SaaS tools and subscriptions in a single location. The solution provides crucial data on how much the business is spending on each subscription, as well as when contracts are due to be renewed; and more importantly, it provides usage data, so the business can see whether it’s getting the maximum possible ROI.
SE: Tell me more about how Spendflo works, especially for audiences who could benefit, like: finance, procurement and IT, and security.
SS: Spendflo helps companies save hundreds of hours on negotiating SaaS contracts and offers complete visibility while helping them evaluate, right-size and optimize their stack. This leads to faster approvals, easier onboarding, and more informed decision-making for a company's SaaS needs. For each audience, this translates into direct and impactful advantages, such as:
CFOs and their finance teams now gain more visibility, get guaranteed savings (Spendflo provides 3x ROI consistently), and have streamlined approvals for their SaaS stack. Benchmark vendor data also helps them know areas where they can save or cut back.
Procurement and IT departments receive benchmarked vendor data, enabling them to identify opportunities for cost savings and reduce procurement cycles. With Spendflo’s granular usage data and SaaS sentiment analysis, procurement and IT teams can make data-backed renewal/replacement decisions. Moreover, Spendflo provides access to skilled negotiation experts who are equipped to handle these tasks with proficiency.
Security teams can now expect guaranteed better compliance with vendor questionnaires, streamlined onboarding processes, and seamless license renewals.
SE: It looks like you’ve experienced tremendous growth in a relatively short amount of time. Tell me about that and what you think is impacting this.
SS: Yes, we’ve experienced incredible growth at Spendflo, and we believe that it's due to a combination of factors. In today's economic climate, businesses are seeking innovative ways to optimize their operations, and Spendflo offers a streamlined, and efficient solution to SaaS buying and management.
Additionally, our best-in-class, 24x7 multi-channel support, along with industry-leading service level agreements, have helped us gain the trust of leading global brands across industries. \
All of these efforts have helped us reach a wider audience and happier customers, which explains our growth trajectory.
SE: How are you going to use the new funds? What are your most immediate and future plans?
SS: The funds raised will be deployed towards strengthening the team, rapidly evolving the product offering, and expanding GTM efforts in the North American region.
SE: Any tips, advice or best practices for other founders and startups currently looking to raise a Series A?
SS: These are the three things that I learned from Spendflo’s journey so far:
- Having loyal customers that truly believe in you, and would recommend you anywhere, anytime, can create a huge impact.
- Having reliable and proficient sales and marketing leaders within the organization makes the journey to Series A much smoother, and probable.
- Keeping past and potential investors in the loop about developments in the company and product is crucial—I highly recommend sending monthly investor updates.