When Celonis, an 11-year-old The German process mining company, which announced a $1 billion raise in August on a $13.2 billion hindsight valuation, was a bit of a shock. After all, VC firms were pulling back from the massive raises and ostentatious valuations of yesteryear.
But celonis – which has raised $2.4 billion, per crunch baseat $2 billion in the past year alone — has been able to defy current thinking in startup circles by taking on huge chunks of capital.
Recall that the valuation is up a whopping 420% since 2019, when it raised $290 million against a valuation of $2.5 billion. That was followed last year with $1 billion at a valuation of $11 billion, culminating in August’s valuation of $13 billion.
Part of the reason it’s such a valuable company is that it’s gradually forged partnerships with corporate giants like IBM and ServiceNow to sell its software, pushing Celonis into markets where even well-funded startups may be constrained by resource requirements. .
It has also been able to fill the platform with several strategic acquisitions (more on that later).
Why are customers, investors and partners so interested in Celonis?
Because, with the help of software, Celonis can dig into the way processes move through a business, looking at complex areas such as purchasing, paying bills and inventory and looking for inefficiencies and duplications that can ultimately lead to huge savings.
This is the kind of work expensive consultants usually do, camping out for months or years in companies and figuring out how the work flows through the organization, collecting fat checks to do it.
Having software that can replace those human efficiency experts, and in a fairly short period of time, is a huge advantage.