Celonis, a provider of execution management systems that help businesses run their business processes, raised an additional $1 billion in a funding round on August 23 to strengthen its position in assisting customers in thriving in challenging economic environments.
Celonis, which has offices in Munich and New York, has raised this new capital at a post-money valuation of $13 billion, making it one of Germany’s most valuable private companies and New York’s most valuable startup.
The $1 billion includes a $400 million Series D extension equity raise and access to a $600 million credit facility through a syndicate of top international banks. This infusion, which extends Celonis’ Series D round, brings the late-stage startup’s total capital raised to $2.4 billion.
Celonis raised $1 billion in a Series D round in June 2021, valued at $11 billion. In November 2019, a $290 million Series C financing round was announced. Prior to that, the company raised $50 million in Series B funding in June 2018 and $27.5 million in Series A funding in June 2016.
Investors are backing Celonis
The Celonis Execution Management System, which began as a college project, identifies and corrects inefficiencies that businesses are unaware of, allowing them to perform at levels they never imagined possible.
Alexander Rinke, Bastian Nominacher, and Martin Klenk founded the company in 2011. The compay has strategic alliances with over 250 consulting and technology partners, including IBM, Accenture, PWC, KPMG, and ServiceNow. The execution management system is used by these companies both internally and as part of their service and technology offerings.
The startup will use these additional funds to invest in product innovation, drive adoption with Global 2000 customers, expand market potential through acquisition investments, and deepen penetration with ecosystem partners.
“Since the first days of Celonis, we have built a company operating on sound fundamentals, immutable customer value and the kind of resiliency that performs at the highest levels in any economic environment. With an additional $1 billion in liquidity, our company will have maximum flexibility to aggressively innovate, capitalize on new market opportunities and extend our market leadership,” said Bastian Nominacher, co-CEO and co-founder of Celonis.
The startup claims that even the best-run businesses can save millions, if not billions, of dollars over time by addressing these issues. Every division, organization, and sector of the economy has numerous hidden process inefficiencies.
Because the underlying ERP, SCM, and CRM systems are rigid and complex, it is difficult, if not impossible, to detect these issues using traditional methods.
Alex Rinke, co-CEO and co-founder of Celonis, said, “There is a ‘behind-the-scenes secret’ that Celonis is equally effective in driving top and bottom-line value in both booming and challenging economies. We have never experienced more urgency from customers to use Celonis to hunt down and fix the kind of process problems that can yield tens to hundreds of millions in cash and time savings.”
