CaptivateIQ has secured a staggering $100 million in its latest Series C funding round, pushing its valuation to $1.25 billion. This comes less than a year after the San Francisco-based no-code SaaS platform raised $46 million in a Series B round. CaptivateIQ empowers businesses to create customized sales commission plans with ease, streamlining complex commission processes.
ICONIQ Growth, along with existing investors Sequoia and Accel, co-led the Series C round. New participant Sapphire Ventures also supported the funding. This brings the startup's total capital raised to an impressive $164.6 million. The company reported that its revenue had more than tripled, although no explicit figures were given.
Founded in 2017, CaptivateIQ went on to become a part of Y Combinator's Winter 2018 batch. The platform is among a new generation of Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) solutions that have emerged to automate companies' commission design, processing, and reporting systems. The company boasts a diverse customer base across industries and continents, including Affirm, Amplitude, ClassPass, and Podium, plus over a quarter of Forbes' Cloud 100 list.
Mark Schopmeyer, co-founder and co-CEO of CaptivateIQ, explained that sales compensation makes up the single largest go-to-market investment for many B2B organizations. However, companies have long struggled with managing complex, error-prone spreadsheets and inflexible, costly legacy systems. Schopmeyer argues that these older systems can only accommodate certain commission plans and require users to master obscure programming languages, making them prohibitively expensive, with implementation fees often reaching six figures.
The no-code platform from CaptivateIQ aims to simplify these challenges by providing the flexibility of spreadsheets combined with the scalability and performance of software. This powerhouse solution enables businesses to configure commission plans with ease, offering a more customized and agile approach.
Co-CEO Conway Teng highlighted that calculating commissions is a complex and crucial task, comparing it to a more intricate form of payroll. Each business has its unique commission plan, demanding far more calculations and data than conventional salary payroll math. Teng added that companies have access to more data than ever before, allowing them to incentivize employees based on various performance metrics.
Focusing on expansion and growth, CaptivateIQ is investing in product development, R&D, and team building. The company now boasts over 200 employees, a significant increase from the 90-strong team it had during its Series B round in April 2021.
ICONIQ Growth General Partner Doug Pepper is confident in the vast market opportunity for sales commissions, describing CaptivateIQ's platform as extremely powerful, flexible, and adaptive. Pepper praised its ability to cater to various compensation plans and sales organizations while maintaining familiar spreadsheet features, making it highly intuitive for users.
The no-code movement has been gaining momentum, with platforms like AppMaster and other similar services gaining traction. Recently, Walnut, a company that designs sales and marketing demo experiences, announced a $35 million Series B financing. Softr, a Berlin-based startup that allows clients to create apps on top of Airtable databases, raised $13.5 million in a Series A funding round as well.
