With $128M Round, MuleSoft Shows App Integration Value
Application integration has always been a pretty big deal, since few organizations purchase all or even most of their enterprise software from a single vendor. It's an even bigger deal now with the rise of the cloud, as companies need their on-premise, cloud and hybrid apps to exchange information with each other.
Given this, it's not too surprising that MuleSoft, provider of an integration platform that connects any application, API or data source, just snagged $128 million, bringing total funding to $259 million. Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce's corporate investment group, led the latest funding round. Existing strategic investor Cisco Investments and ServiceNow, a new investor, also participated.
“MuleSoft is changing the way companies access and connect with an increasing number of external data sources in the Salesforce ecosystem and we're pleased to partner together to help fuel the company’s growth as it drives digital transformation,” said John Somorjai, EVP of Corporate Development and Salesforce Ventures, in a statement
Because Salesforce uses MuleSoft's technology to connect applications built on its development platform to back-end systems such as databases, the two companies often partner on sales. Similarly, ServiceNow is also sometimes involved in sales deals with MuleSoft.
Rounding out the diverse group of investors were public market investors and affiliates Adage Capital Management, Brookside Capital and Sands Capital Ventures, along with MuleSoft’s existing venture investors NEA, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, Bay Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Morgenthaler and Sapphire Ventures.
Founded in 2006, MuleSoft is on a growth tear. Fiscal year 2014 was the company's most successful year yet, with an annual run rate of total bookings surpassing $100 million and a record number of new customers. It also reported record results for 2015's first quarter, with 110 percent growth in new subscriptions. MuleSoft also nearly doubled its workforce, to 500 employees in 10 offices across the globe.
MuleSoft has more than 700 customers, including such big names as Verizon, eBay, Nestle, Walmart and Unilever.
MuleSoft originated as a free, open source service. While it still is listed as a project on open source repository GitHub, the company has obviously found success with the paid versions of its services as well.
Now valued at some $1.5 billion, most observers believe MuleSoft is headed for an IPO. In an interview with SiliconBeat, MuleSoft CEO Greg Schott said the company is working to develop relationships with public investor institutions like those included in the latest funding round. MuleSoft is “certainly at the scale now” to consider an IPO, he said.
Apigee, a company that like MuleSoft offers API management services, raised nearly $87 million in an IPO last month, selling more than 5 million shares of common stock at $17 each.
Ann All is the editor of Enterprise Apps Today and eSecurity Planet. She has covered business and technology for more than a decade, writing about everything from business intelligence to virtualization.
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