SoftBank bets big on Pipefy, which just raised $75M for its ‘low-code’ workflow management tool – TechCrunch

SoftBank is big on Pipefy. The company just raised $75M to fund its low-code workflow management software.
Pipefy, a SaaS startup that manages low-code workflows, today announced it had raised $75 million in Series C funding.

SoftBank Latin America Fund led financing, contributing $50 million. This brings Pipefy's total of funds raised to $138.7 millions since its inception in 2015. Steadfast Capital Management and Insight Partners contributed money to the round. Redpoint Eventures, Redpoint Eventures, and Steadfast Kapital Management also participated. The company, based in San Francisco, declined to disclose the valuation at which the money was raised. However, they said that it is very close to unicorn status.

Pipefy was founded in Brazil and was initially headquartered there. Officials say that the company was still considered to be part of the SoftBank Latin America Fund. Pipefy received $45 million in 2019 from Openview, Insight Partners and Trinity Ventures. This round was led by Insight.

Pipefy is a software that aims to revolutionize workflow management. Pipefy has over 4,000 corporate clients worldwide, including GE Healthcare and Magalu, as well as electric truck maker Rivian, Nubank and Magalu.

Although the startup did not release hard numbers, founder and CEO Alessio Aliono stated that Pipefy had doubled its annual revenue. It also has 500 employees today, up from 250 in January.

When it talks about workflow management, the startup says it has the ability to automate virtually any repeatable process such as employee onboarding, purchasing/procurement, recruiting, IT service requests and expense reimbursement.

Says Aliono: Our tool enables citizen developers. These are professionals who perform the work, but do not have IT training. Pipefy allows citizen developers to create shared, standard forms to collect data, and to customize the workflows they know as practitioners. They don't have to rely on IT for their applications.

Pipefy makes use of if/then conditions to automate process phases. In essence, it unifies a variety collaboration channels like Slack or spreadsheets into one portal.

The company claims that it can support more complex operations. IT teams can use the tool to integrate legacy systems such as ERPs and CRMs to manage operations across multiple systems.

Pipefy's goal is to enable companies, from small startups to multinational corporations, to quickly automate and tailor their integrated workflows. Aliono described Pipefy as a horizontal platform. However, it can be used by any number of departments within an organization, such as finance, marketing, and customer service.

Aliono stated that Pipefy is different from other competitors because it has a low-code implementation that can scale easily from one team to an entire company.

According to Aliono the COVID-19 pandemic helped to increase demand for its offerings and put severe pressure upon IT organizations.

He said that as the virus's restrictions begin to ease, more companies offer hybrid, remote, and in-person work models. This has led to employees being dispersed more than ever before. Pipefy recognized, and continues to recognize, the need for tools like ours that provide visibility over remote workers and projects, as well as automated processes.

Ananth Avva, president and COO of Pipefys Software, stated that more IT leaders and CIOs are becoming customers.

Aliono stated that our low-code approach meets the needs of distributed workforces all over the globe.

The company intends to make use of its new capital to accelerate its global expansion. It plans to hire more globally, and to further develop its product-to-market strategy and product.

Its origins are in Brazil and it has strong brand recognition in that country. Pipefy plans to rapidly expand in other LatAm Countries. It worked hard to establish a strong presence in the U.S. marketplace in 2021. It plans to continue its efforts in U.S. market growth and on acquiring new customers from Europe, Africa and the Middle East in 2019.

Pipefy is a SaaS platform which can be quickly configured and activated from anywhere in the world. Our team is multilingual so there are not many of the usual costs associated with global expansion.

Matthew Pieterse is the investment leader at SoftBank Latin America Fund. He said that the increasing prevalence of SaaS apps and a distributed workforce have made enterprise software environments more complex and demanded tools to navigate them.

Pipefy is a leader of an outstanding team that has created a powerful, flexible, and feature-rich low-code solution that allows users who are not technical to quickly create, build, or deploy automated workflows. This increases the visibility and control of any process. He wrote via email.