Celonis: SAP competitor secures one billion dollars

Enlarge image

On course for success: Bastian Nominacher, Alexander Rinke

and

, the founders of Celonis

Photo: Celonis

The most valuable German start-up Celonis has secured funding of another billion dollars.

This increases the valuation of the SAP competitor to almost $13 billion from previously $11 billion, Celonis announced on Tuesday.

The sovereign wealth fund from Qatar, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), was at the forefront of investors.

Other donors included the investment companies Activant Capital, Neuberger Berman, Alta Park Capital and Commonfund Capital.

According to the company, old investors also participated.

In view of the turbulence on the capital markets and the collapse in the valuation of many tech stocks, a number of start-ups, including those with high ratings, have recently had problems raising fresh capital from investors.

If at all, the financiers were often only willing to accept new rounds of financing under tough conditions.

The investors are now providing Celonis with an additional 400 million dollars.

In addition, there is a line of credit with a bank syndicate in the amount of 600 million dollars.

According to observers, the large credit line suggests that the company will continue to do well financially.

Bastian Nominacher

(37), who founded the data specialist in 2011 with fellow students from the Technical University of Munich,

(33) and

(35)

founded, said that the fresh money would give the company additional room for maneuver to strategically develop the business and expand its market position.

The Munich company specializes in analyzing and improving company processes with its software.

Celonis draws data from company software such as SAP, Salesforce or Microsoft, which is then used and interpreted in the Celonis cloud.

Customers include corporations such as Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa, Bosch, BMW and Deutsche Bank.

For example, you can use the Celonis software to simulate changes to see whether and how they can actually improve a process.

According to a company spokesman, the Celonis business is growing annually in a three-digit percentage range.

The fresh capital is technically an extension of the Series D financing round announced in June 2021. With the three previous rounds, the three founders have now raised around $1.37 billion from external investors since 2016.

According to Celonis, the credit line can also be used for acquisitions in order to continue growing.

Most recently, Celonis bought the Darmstadt-based company Process Analytics Factory (PAF) for around $100 million.

Before that, Munich-based Lenses.io from Great Britain and the Czech automation platform Integromat had taken over.

It is not the first start-up commitment for the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.

The QIA is increasingly investing in tech companies, including the Berlin start-up Infarm, which relies on vertical farming, and the British payment service provider Checkout.com.

Celonis expressed reservations about the background to the entry of the sovereign wealth fund from the emirate.

The sovereign wealth fund is one of Celonis' internationally renowned investors, a spokesman said on request.

With strategic investments in numerous companies worldwide, QIA has an immense network to open Celonis doors and develop new business opportunities.

With $445 billion in assets under management, QIA is one of the world's largest investors and, according to Celonis, is considered a long-term strategic investor.

dri/Reuters