Lakestar, Accel, Cherry Ventures back the €13.1M funding round of this Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel rival

Berlin-based Rows.com (previously Dashdash), a platform that provides spreadsheets for developing business tools without needing to code, has raised $16M (approx €13.1M) in its Series B round of funding.

With this development, Rows.com is also announcing its launch into public beta, enabling anyone to create an account and use the platform. The public beta follows Rows giving access to its waitlist of more than 10,000 people over the past few weeks, claims the company.

Investors in this round

The round was led by Lakestar. In addition, the round also saw participation from existing investors including Accel and Cherry Ventures. Besides, new angel investor Christian Reber, CEO of Pitch, also participated and will be joining the company’s Advisory Board.

About Rows.com

Originally founded by Humberto Ayres Pereira and Torben Schulz as Dashdash in 2016, the company rebranded to Rows in November 2020.

Explaining how the startup was born, Humberto Ayres Pereira co-founder of Rows.com, says, “The last decade has seen thousands of productivity apps released, but legacy players like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel still dominate spreadsheets, which remain the holy grail of productivity tools. The world continues to count on spreadsheets to create billions of documents every year, but modern work requires better collaboration and connectivity to online business tools. We think spreadsheets should do more, so we created Rows for those users who think outside the cell.”

“We’ve built a new type of spreadsheet that can turn any user into a tool creator, without having to spend time learning new programs, coding or toggling between tools. We’ve already seen incredible demand during our private beta and are really excited to see what tools users continue to build.”

Rows.com offers a cloud platform-based spreadsheet that allows users to own and automate their workflows by building apps and tools straight from the sheet. The platform also has functions such as integrations and publishing, which it claims are not offered by existing spreadsheet tools.

Here are three key features offered by the platform:

• A spreadsheet, with all the Excel functions, such as SUMIFS; 
• Integrations, that connect any spreadsheet to business services like Salesforce or Linkedin; and
• A sharing experience, that turns spreadsheets into slick web-apps in one click

“All of this without scripts or plugins, and without the need to call IT for help. This new combination of classic functions, integrations, and sharing is the biggest rethink of spreadsheets since Google Sheets,” the company mentions in a press release.

Use of the funds

The raised capital will be used to build out functionality before its full product launch later this year. The company will open its platform to the maker community, enabling teams everywhere to share and remix spreadsheets. 

Companies will be able to offer their spreadsheets privately or publicly in their own URLs, e.g. rows.com/my-company. In addition, Rows.com will also build and release desktop apps and charts, to expand the integrations and data offered. 

With a team of 50 across offices in Berlin and Porto, Rows.com is making additional hires for R&D and growth.

Growth since its last funding

Since its Series A round in 2018 – when it raised $8M (approx €6.5M), the company has hired more than 30 people for its Porto and Berlin teams, released more than 200 features, and expanded the private beta of the spreadsheet platform to new users.

In addition, more than a thousand companies participated in Rows’ private beta, including corporates like Just Eat Takeaway and startups like Chattermill, and Loyalty Prime. Businesses are using the platform for critical functions across sales, marketing, and operations.

The company has also announced that starting today, any user can create an account and start using Rows for free. With a tiered pricing model, Rows is free for smaller teams who only need up to 10 users and occasional integration usage. The paid subscriptions for larger businesses start at $59 (approx €48.55) a month.