ServiceMax boosts IoT appeal as funding tops $200m
- Summary:
- Cloud-based field service management provider ServiceMax has attracted corporate investment from industrial IoT backers as part of an $82m new funding round
The new round brings the Salesforce partner's total venture funding to $202 million, with GE Capital and PTC joining the round as new investors.
GE is a significant player in what it likes to call the 'Industrial Internet', while product design and management company PTC has become one of the leading players in the industrial Internet of Things market after its acquisition of IoT platform developer Thingworx in 2013. This year PTC further bolstered its position with a deal to buy machine learning and predictive analytics vendor ColdLight, around the same time as ServiceMax announced a partnership with PTC.
PTC's president and CEO Jim Heppelmann said in a statement yesterday:
We've admired how ServiceMax is leading the charge to redefine service with their innovative products and pioneering industry perspective on the potential of IoT. That's why we partnered with them to deliver the first complete mobile software offering for managing and optimizing smart connected machines in the Industrial Internet of Things.
ServiceMax said it will use the new funds to continue rapid global expansion and increase product development. The company added 140 new customers last year and posted 200 percent growth in Europe. It has since opened a new office in Japan.
CEO Dave Yarnold commented in prepared remarks:
With 400 companies relying on ServiceMax as their mobile field service solution, we've clearly established ourselves as the global market leader. We're thrilled to secure financing that will enable us to continue investing in this massive market opportunity and fuel the convergence of field service and the Internet of Things.
The round was led by new investor Premji Invest, the private investing arm of Indian business leader and Wipro Limited Chairman Azim Premji. Cloud Apps Capital was also a new investor, while existing investors including well-known names such as Emergence Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield and Trinity Ventures also joined the round.
Its previous funding round netted $71 million in March last year. That round, described at the time as a "late stage" investment, was led by Meritech, but so far there are no signs of an imminent IPO for ServiceMax.
ServiceMax software is built and runs natively on the Salesforce platform. As I recalled earlier this year after Box launched a similar contest, ServiceMax (under its former name Maxplore) was the original winner of a competition in 2008 run by Salesforce and Emergence Capital to fund a startup building its software on the Salesforce platform. Salesforce is also an investor in the company but didn't participate in the latest round.
Disclosure: Salesforce is a diginomica premier partner.
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