GGV Capital Leads Investment to Drive Continued Growth and Power Best-In-Class IT Platform
NEW YORK — October 19, 2021 — Electric, the leader in providing world-class IT technology for small and medium-sized businesses, today announced it has raised $90M in Series D funding. Existing investor GGV Capital is leading the round, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, Greenspring Associates, 01 Advisors, Atreides Management, Vintage Investment Partners and Slack, bringing Electric’s total amount raised to over $189M.
The new capital will be used to drive additional growth through investments in product development, customer service and company culture. Furthering its mission to make IT easy for small businesses, Electric plans to expand its partner and integration ecosystem and extend its IT management platform, providing more proactive tools for customers to efficiently manage employees, networks, devices and applications.
“We’re focused on building a company that can lead the market for a very long time,” said CEO and founder Ryan Denehy. “Our existing investors share that vision, so we were thrilled to be able to complete the Series D without bringing on any new capital partners. It’s a testament to the belief everyone around the table has in our technology and Electric’s future.”
When Electric was founded in 2016, the average SMB had eight SaaS applications running simultaneously; today, that number is 88. IT is an acute pain point for small businesses navigating hybrid work scenarios, particularly given the rise in security threats and the proliferation of SaaS applications. Electric simplifies IT for small businesses, giving them a single platform to view, purchase and manage their entire IT infrastructure, as well as real-time support to free them from daily IT tasks that drain resources.
“The complexity of IT for SMBs has gone way up in the last 5-10 years, and is not going back,” said Jeff Richards, Managing Partner at GGV Capital. “SMBs spend $300-400 billion a year on IT in the US alone, a number that will continue to grow for decades as every industry is transformed by digitization, which only accelerated in the pandemic. In a recent survey we did of US SMB’s, 68% said their IT budget is increasing in 2021 vs 2020, and 71% said remote work had impacted their IT budget. We’ve been lucky to watch Ryan and his team build Electric from the Series B and are thrilled to be more than doubling down to lead this new round of financing.”
The Series D comes on the heels of Electric’s acquisition of Techvera, its second in less than a year following the acquisition of Sinu in November 2020. While important to any business, growth for the sake of growth has never been Electric’s mission; both acquisitions were made strategically to further expand product offerings and market presence on its path towards becoming the top IT technology provider in the country. In order to get there, the team is focused on scaling responsibly with customer service and employee wellness at the forefront.
In addition to acquisitions, the last 12 months of hypergrowth at Electric have resulted in 183% increase in headcount (up to 444 employees) and a 111% increase in annual recurring revenue (ARR), Forrester’s Total Economic Impact report demonstrates that Electric delivers 105% return on investment (ROI) with a six-month payback for its clients. Electric currently supports over 700 customers and 40,000 end users, including AllTrails, Morning Brew, Pacific Catch and Socialfly.
On October 28, Electric will be hosting its inaugural conference, Elevate, bringing together powerful changemakers to educate and inspire attendees to elevate the world around them. Emmy® award-winning writer, actor, director and producer Dan Levy will be delivering an exclusive Q&A and Tara Goldman, SVP of Product at Electric, will be giving the product keynote speech to further discuss how the Series D investment will be focused. For more information about Elevate, visit https://learn.electric.ai/elevate/.
To learn more about Electric, visit electric.ai.
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About Electric
Electric is the industry leader in providing world-class IT technology and real-time support for small and mid-sized businesses. With over 700 customers and more than 40,000 employee end-users, Electric’s IT platform includes: real-time support powered by 100+ IT technicians, security, device & inventory management, network & server management, application & cloud management, employee on-boarding and off-boarding, procurement & provisioning, and data monitoring & insights. Electric is funded by an all-star team of investors including: Bessemer Venture Partners, GGV Capital, 01 Advisors, Primary Venture Partners, Bowery Capital, Slack, Atreides Management, Vintage Investment Partners, and Greenspring Associates. For more information, visit electric.ai.
About GGV Capital:
GGV Capital is a global venture firm that invests in local founders, managing $9.2 billion with investments in the United States, Canada, China, Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, and Israel from offices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai, and Beijing. As a multi-stage, sector-focused firm, GGV Capital invests in seed-to-growth stage companies across three sectors: Social/Internet, Enterprise Tech, and Smart Tech. Over the past two decades, the firm has backed more than 400 companies around the world, including Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, Big Commerce, Grab, HashiCorp, Hello, Keep, Kujiale, NIU, Opendoor Technologies, Peloton, Poshmark, Slack, Square, StockX, Udaan, Wish, Xpeng, Zendesk and more. More information at www.ggvc.com and @ggvcapital.