London-based Unaric, a company that buys, builds, and grows Salesforce-focused Independent Software Vendors, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $35M (approximately €32M) (debt and equity) in a seed round of funding.
The funding comes from LocalGlobe, Concentric, FJ Labs, and Atempo Growth.
Private investors Daniel Waterhouse (General Partner at Balderton Capital), Sujay Tyle (co-founder of unicorns Frontier Car Group & Merama), Philipp Triebel (co-founder of Sellerx), Patrick Aisher (serial SaaS entrepreneur & founder of Mountain Labs) and German football star Mario Gotze also joined the round.
Angel investors OwnBackup founder Sam Gutmann, SaaS Guru Dave Kellogg, and Hotjar founder Johan Malmberg also participated in the round.
Unlocking untapped potential
With over 4,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) supplying software products connected to Salesforce, the SaaS ecosystem represents a vast market worth $29 billion annually in 2021 and is expected to grow to $68 billion by 2026.
While these ISVs offer specialised solutions, they often struggle to scale due to the unique nature of their business models within the Salesforce ecosystem.
Unaric’s founders and management team possess the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience gained from 40 years of founding, building, running, and merging companies in the Salesforce sector. This enables them to unlock the untapped potential within this ecosystem.
James Gasteen, co-founder and CEO, says, “Unaric was started by founders for founders to help them release their value. There is a mismatch in the Salesforce ISV ecosystem which we have experienced personally and we know how to put it right.”
He continues, “We believe that by building suites of products that match more closely enterprises’ needs, we can help companies significantly increase their sales, scale their businesses and sell to corporate buyers who would not normally buy from individual vendors.”
“When software businesses become part of Unaric we can take all the admin off the founders’ plate and accelerate their growth channels, so that they can build a great technical product,” adds Gasteen.
The UK company aims to acquire 30-40 companies over the next three years to consolidate and enhance their offerings. Their first acquisition is Salesforce module Bolt, a London-based company with over 1,000 customers.
Adopting a consolidation strategy
Unaric intends to adopt a consolidation strategy similar to successful vertical market consolidators like Veeva Systems ($31B market cap) and Ncino ($3B market cap), as well as horizontal consolidators like Constellation Software ($43B market cap).
Unaric: Building largest suite of apps
Unaric was founded by Salesforce ecosystem serial entrepreneurs James Gasteen and Neil Crawford, alongside ex-Frontier Car Group unicorn founder Peter Lindholm and former M&A banker Moritz Birke.
The London-based company is building the largest suite of apps on the Salesforce platform through a unique acquisition approach.
Peter Lindholm, co-founder and Chair, says, “We’ve put together a team of people who understand what it takes to scale a software company and there is a strong opportunity for consolidation in this sector right now.”
“Our mission is to help founders of ISVs take the next step – whether they intend to stay with the business they founded or are looking for an exit. Unaric will build industry-focused suites of companies that innovate on product, drive scale and increase revenues,” adds Lindholm.
The investor
LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that supports companies from seed funding to Series A rounds.
As the most accomplished investor in unicorns at the seed stage across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), LocalGlobe has a proven track record of backing successful companies such as At-Bay, Improbable, Motorway, TravelPerk, and Zego.
In the past year alone, companies within LocalGlobe’s portfolio, as well as its sister fund Latitude, have raised $9.4B in follow-on capital from renowned global investors.
Julian Rowe, General Partner at LocalGlobe said “With highly successful, repeat entrepreneurs at the helm, Unaric is one of the most exciting businesses we have seen in the enterprise sector. Peter and James’s ambitious plan will create real value for enterprise customers, as well as unlocking strong new investment and commercial opportunities for the companies it acquires.”
“The founding team have the perfect skills and experience to consolidate this sector, but also drive value across its portfolio of companies in highly tangible and impactful ways. We are hugely excited by the potential to better serve the enterprise sector with superior technical products that find a much bigger market,” adds Rowe.
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