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January 15, 2016updated 31 Aug 2016 10:07am

UK SaaS software firm becomes latest $1bn tech unicorn

News: New CFO also named at Anaplan.

By Ellie Burns

Anaplan, a company borne from an idea conceived in a Yorkshire barn, has received the much sought-after accolade of tech ‘unicorn’, having been valued at more than $1 billion.

The valuation follows a funding round of $90m, which brings the total investment in the company to $240m.
Premji Invest led the investment in the enterprise planning cloud company, supported by Baillie Gifford, Founders Circle Capital, and Harmony Partners, as well as Anaplan’s current investors.

Demand for Anaplan’s cloud-based business planning and modelling platform is surging, with the raised funds earmarked to fulfil the increasing demand for the company’s products. Explaining the SaaS company’s increased demand, Anaplan President and CEO Fred Laluyaux said:

"Every day we meet executives across the world expressing urgency to become numbers driven in the strategic and tactical decisions they make. But they are stuck using technologies that were designed 30 or more years ago in another era where today’s business challenges didn’t exist.

They are deploying Anaplan into every area of their business — Finance, Sales, Marketing, HR, Supply Chain, Operations, and IT — because Anaplan’s platform and apps enable a radically new approach to how businesses plan, execute, simulate changes, and rapidly course-correct their operations."

In addition to announcing its new Unicorn status, Anaplan also named James Budge as CFO. Budge joins from Genesys where he led global finance, corporate development, legal, HR, and IT.

On the appointment, Laluyaux said: We are thrilled to welcome our new investors and James to the company. With James’ tremendous track record we now have an outstanding finance executive on our team to guide our continued growth."

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Investors in Anaplan will be pleased by the positive performance of the company’s first half fiscal year ending January 2016. Revenue grew 134% year-over-year, with users growing 160% to over 60,000.

The global customer base of over 400 now extends across more than 20 countries, while Anaplan’s workforce has doubled to over 500.

 

Discussing the rise of Anaplan from Yorkshire barn to Silicon Valley, Anaplan Co-founder and CTO, Michael Gould, spoke to CBR’s Ambrose McNevin. Read the interview here.

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