Supporting early-stage companies in the cloud business applications sector, former salesforce.com executive and venture capitalist Matt Holleran has started Cloud Apps Capital Partners and announced its market-focused investment strategy. With decades of operational and investing experience in the business applications market, Cloud Apps Capital Partners can utilize its network of cloud industry experts to benefit the firm’s portfolio companies.
“The venture market today is not optimized for cloud business application companies,” said Holleran. “New business application companies require more capital and more board support than the seed market can provide. Large venture firms would like to see more traction prior to investing.”
Having first-hand experience in the cloud industry enables Cloud Apps Capital to further evaluate and invest in cloud business app companies prior to market traction, optimizing growth within the company’s very early stages of development. Along with operational guidance from experts within the investment firm, portfolio companies will benefit from Classic Series A financings of $2 million to $4 million.
“We know firsthand what it takes to build category-leading business application companies, and we help the entrepreneur to put the fundamentals in place to be successful. We are leading a change in the venture industry with our market-focused Classic Series A approach, and we expect to see more new market-focused venture firms in other categories.”
So far, the firm has invested in seven companies – upholding the firm’s mission to support cloud business application companies and its investment strategy. The portfolio includes:
Hootsuite, the leading global social media management platform;
ServiceMax, the leading field service management software provider and a pioneer of an enterprise cloud company that has become the global category leader;
Insightly, the business freemium CRM leader, which helps hundreds of thousands of companies around the world manage their customers;
Dasheroo, a business freemium company solving a global need for easy-to-use business dashboards; and
GoFormz, a mobile enterprise platform that makes it easy for business users to modernize how they work.
Dave Yarnold, CEO of Portfolio Company ServiceMax says: “Cloud Apps Capital’s experience and insights into the cloud business software market have been very helpful over the years. They fully understand the power and potential that new cloud business applications have to change the business landscape, and are as excited and committed as we are to make it happen.”
