Recently BOCA celebrated milestones for two clients that reached unicorn status. MindTickle, a leader in sales readiness technology, and FloQast, a provider of accounting workflow automation, both reached valuations of more than $1 billion. As background, venture capitalist Aileen Lee first coined the term “unicorn” in 2013 to signify how rare it is for a startup to reach that status.
As of June, 728 private companies in the world were valued at more than $1 billion, according to research firm CB Insights. Of the unicorns CB Insights tracked, 17% were in the fintech space.
Business Insider noted that 136 companies achieved unicorn status just in the second quarter of 2021, surpassing the total for all of 2020. Of the 136 unicorn startups, 76 are based in the United States.
FloQast Celebrates Award-Winning Culture Along With Recent Funding
FloQast achieved a recent Series D funding round bringing the company to a $1.2 billion valuation.
Meritech Capital led the Series D round, and participants included Insight Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, Coupa Ventures, Polaris Partners and Norwest Venture Partners. FloQast specializes in financial close management software and plans to use the funding to invest further in its accounting workflow automation software.
VentureBeat’s Paul Sawers wrote, “FloQast had previously raised around $93 million, and with its latest cash injection, the company is well-financed to capitalize on a growing push toward automation across the accountancy sphere.”
The company has received multiple honors within the last year as a Best Place to Work, including the Los Angeles Business Journal for the fifth year in a row. FloQast also received similar honors from Inc. Magazine as a Best Workplace for 2021 and Built In LA. A culture of nurturing employees has brought FloQast prestigious recognition when it comes to places of employment.
“Our employees have always been what differentiates FloQast, and that will continue to be the case as we move through this next period of rapid growth,” said Mike Whitmire, former CPA, CEO and co-founder of FloQast. “It takes a world-class roster of teammates to build a startup into a unicorn, and adding to our proven team of winners will help us maintain our trajectory for years to come.”
MindTickle Hits $1 Billion Milestone
MindTickle also recently celebrated a valuation of $1.2 billion, reaching unicorn status. A new $100 million round of Series E funding from SoftBank Vision Fund 2* put MindTickle into unicorn territory Investors also included Norwest Venture Partners, Canaan, NewView Capital and Qualcomm Ventures.
MindTickle is a company that allows sales teams to “tickle” their minds with data insights to help them raise their performance to peak levels. The company uses role-playing and gamification to help train and upskill sales teams. Sales readiness platforms such as MindTickle help companies overcome the challenges of maintaining high sales performance levels.
“Revenue leaders understand that sales readiness is a mission-critical component of their strategy to consistently meet or exceed their goals,” said Krishna Depura, Mindtickle CEO and co-founder. “They are taking more square ownership of these programs, and partnering with their sales enablement, revenue operations, and training teams to create a continuous state of excellence across their organizations.”
Meanwhile, MindTickle announced in November 2020 that it had raised $100 million in an earlier round also led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. MindTickle is part of a recent VC boom for tech companies in India.
BOCA loves to see clients get well-deserved recognition. Congrats to FloQast and MindTickle on these important milestones!