Revenue Delivery Platform leader backed by FTV Capital, Kindred, Notion and 83North
Paddle, the Revenue Delivery Platform for B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, today announces it has raised $68 million (£52 million) in Series C funding. The most recent investment was led by FTV Capital, a sector-focused growth equity investor in innovative companies in enterprise technology and services, financial services, payments and transaction processing, with participation from Kindred Capital, Notion Capital and 83North. This brings the total investment raised to date by Paddle to $93 million (£72 million). The funding will be used for continued expansion in the US and globally, as well as further investments in the company’s product, engineering, sales and marketing teams.
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Paddle was founded in 2012 by British co-founders Christian Owens and Harrison Rose, with a vision of providing a complete solution to help software companies sell their products. The Paddle team has grown to 140 employees, and Paddle’s Revenue Delivery Platform today serves over 2,000 software companies in 245 countries and territories globally, empowering them to respond to every growth opportunity across customer acquisition, renewals and expansion.
Powerful market forces are reshaping the software industry, particularly the SaaS market, which is predicted to be worth over $105 billion in 2020. Many SaaS companies have seen demand surge during the Covid-19 pandemic as businesses and consumers became increasingly reliant on digital products and services. In fact, Paddle has seen sales by existing sellers accelerate during the pandemic, with particularly strong demand for software that supports distributed teams and collaboration, from VPNs to video calling.
However, SaaS companies are also facing unprecedented competition in an environment where they live or die by customer acquisition costs and their ability to maintain customer loyalty. They have the opportunity to compete and sell in any market in the world, but to do so must manage payments and operations in multiple markets, and navigate an increasingly complex web of international and local tax and data regulations.
As a result, scaling up is no longer just about focusing on building the right product and having the right go-to-market strategy. High-velocity SaaS companies are shifting their focus to a third powerful growth lever, Revenue Delivery, to drive hyper-scale growth by optimising Net Dollar Retention (NDR). Unfortunately, existing revenue delivery infrastructure isn’t ready for the scale and ambition of today’s software companies and businesses are stuck trying to force-fit integrations between legacy payment gateways, billing engines, subscription management tools, and multiple tax, compliance and data governance systems. This is a huge drain on time and resources that can severely limit SaaS companies’ ability to scale.
Paddle’s Revenue Delivery Platform makes it easy for SaaS companies to respond faster and more precisely to every growth opportunity for their business. A single unified platform, Paddle integrates checkout, payment, subscription management, and financial compliance; meaning sellers on the platform can activate new business models instantly, enter new markets with ease, turn on new offerings with one-click, and enable friction-free renewals. This modern approach to revenue delivery empowers CEOs to make informed business decisions quickly and confidently, and frees up teams to focus on the core business rather than operational headaches. Ultimately, using Paddle enables businesses to optimise NDR and deliver business impact that outperforms expectations.
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Paddle has seen incredible demand to date, recording an average annual revenue growth of over 175% over the last four years and doubling in the last year alone.
Christian Owens, CEO and co-founder of Paddle, said:
“The beauty of the SaaS model is that if you build a great product, you can sell it to anyone, anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, it is rarely that simple. We created Paddle because we’ve seen first hand the things that limit the growth of a SaaS company often have very little to do with the quality of your product. Dealing with payments, managing subscriptions, localising checkouts in multiple languages and handling tax and compliance across dozens of markets is hugely complex and each of these challenges makes it harder for businesses to scale quickly. Our Revenue Delivery Platform has been built to remove all of this friction for B2B SaaS companies, empowering them to increase NDR by responding faster to every growth opportunity. We’re excited to continue our own growth with this investment and look forward to maintaining momentum in the months and years ahead.”
Kyle Griswold, partner, who led the investment for FTV Capital, added:
“We are witnessing a systemic shift within software, with the ‘growth at any cost’ mindset gradually being replaced by a realisation that businesses must scale more efficiently and with clearer purpose. We’ve been extremely impressed with Christian and Harrison’s ambition and Paddle’s growth to date and we believe they are defining a new category with Paddle’s Revenue Delivery Platform — one that will be critical to helping companies adapt to change while empowering them to take advantage of the huge acceleration in demand for digital products. With more than two decades investing in the SaaS and payments sectors, FTV will bring the best of our domain expertise to accelerate Paddle’s exciting growth.”