Pricefx, the Munich-founded startup that offers cloud-based pricing software, has raised €23 million in additional funding as part of its earlier Series B round.
The new investment is led by Digital+ Partners, the European B2B technology growth investor, and management consulting firm Bain & Company. Talis Capital, Pricefx’s Series A investor, also followed on, while its brings the Series B as a whole to €48 million.
“This new funding will allow us to further expand our platform capabilities, add new functionality and introduce several new, game-changing products to the market in 2020,” said Marcin Cichon, CEO and co-founder of Pricefx, in a statement.
“We anticipate continued global expansion through both organic and partner-enabled growth, as well as strategic projects. Our investors are excited about our path forward, and this subsequent investment helps to secure their positions ahead of our further expansion.”
I understand those “strategic projects” include planned M&A activity, as Pricefx looks to expand its offering within the broader pricing intelligence space.
The company also says its valuation has tripled in the last 12 months but isn’t specifying the actual figure.
It is also worth noting that Pricefx has resolved recent legal wrangling over some of its IP, which feels potentially related to both the new Series B tranche and an increased valuation.
According to a press release put out by Pricefx in September, the litigation between Pricefx and Vendavo began when Vendavo filed a complaint in California federal court in December 2017. The case then expanded to include several counterclaims by Pricefx against Vendavo for trade secret misappropriation, as well as an ancillary suit in Illinois federal court, and challenges by Pricefx to Vendavo’s patents in the U.S. Patent Office.
Founded in 2011, Munich-based Pricefx provides a modular SaaS solution for price optimisation management (PO&M) and configure-price-quote (CPQ) for enterprises of any size.
Pricing optimisation software typically helps companies accurately define the price of goods across a vast and constantly changing spectrum of data and variables. This can include things like customer survey data and segments, competitor data, operating costs, inventories, and historic prices and sales.
CPQ software aggregates these variables, thus enabling companies to configure products or services in the most optimal way (i.e. bundling, up-sells, etc.), and price them according to costs, competition and local economic factors.
“We are experiencing great momentum, particularly in the United States. This funding allows us to more than double our investment in sales and marketing in 2020,” adds Tom Fencl, CFO of Pricefx, in a statement. “As we grow, we are also beginning to look at potential acquisitions to expand our functional footprint in the area of optimization and artificial intelligence as well as offer higher value to our customers through specialized industry knowhow and expertise.”
