Clarizen Raises $35 Million to Accelerate Global Leadership in Enterprise Work Collaboration

SAN MATEO, CA–(Marketwired – May 21, 2014) – Clarizen, the leader in enterprise work collaboration software, today announced that it has closed a $35 million venture funding round led by Goldman Sachs & Co. This latest Series F investment round brings Clarizen’s total funding to date to $90 million. All existing investors also participated in the round, including Benchmark Capital, Carmel Ventures, DAG Ventures, Opus Capital, and Vintage Investment Partners. The company will use this latest funding round to expand global market share, focusing on customer success, including onboarding and support, and continuing product innovation to support the enterprise market.

This Goldman Sachs-led investment strengthens Clarizen’s company and customer-related momentum. Clarizen, with more than 2,000 customers in 76 countries, recently reported nearly 100 percent quarter-over-quarter growth and the addition of 230 customers, including Electronic Arts, Sony and one of the Big Four audit firms.

“Enterprise work collaboration is transforming the way global organizations succeed and Clarizen is leading enterprises into 21^st century decision-making and execution,” said Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO, Clarizen. “Goldman Sachs has a proven track record funding growing companies that are moving toward an IPO and its partnership underscores the continued momentum of both Clarizen and the enterprise work collaboration space.”

“Unlike other SaaS companies that focus primarily on selling to a functional department within organizations, Clarizen targets all employees wall-to-wall across enterprises, which suggests the magnitude of the opportunity. Clarizen’s opportunity is across verticals, across geographies, across functional departments, and across customer segments,” stated Michael Huang, Senior Research Analyst — SaaS/Application Software, in a recent Needham and Company report.

Clarizen has transformed work collaboration with its award-winning product for the enterprise and mid-market, Clarizen v6. This new investment will allow Clarizen to build on its market-leading v6 platform, keeping one step ahead of the product innovation curve.

Clarizen continues to add an array of product and company-related awards and distinctions to its roster. Key 2014 highlights include:

• Ranking in the “Champion” quadrant of Info-Tech Research Group’s 2014 Mid-Market Project and Portfolio (PPM) Vendor Landscape report. Clarizen also won the report’s “Trend Setter Award” presented to “only those solutions that are deemed to include the most original/inventive product/service, or the most original/inventive feature/capability of a product/service.”
• Winning Business Intelligence Group’s 2014 “BIG Innovation Award,” presented to organizations/people that bring new ideas to life and change the way we experience the world, for Clarizen v6.
• Ranking in the 2014 KMWorld list of “100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management.” The list is compiled during a year-long collaborative effort among colleagues, analysts, system integrators and a select group of users and highlights companies that best fulfill the goal of delivering the right information to the right people at the right time.

Clarizen also announced the appointment of Hillel Moerman, Co-Head, Private Capital Investing Group (“PCI”), Goldman Sachs, to its board of directors and Holger Staude, also a member of PCI, as board observer. PCI is the firm’s investment platform dedicated to providing preferred equity and mezzanine capital to growth and middle market companies.

“Clarizen’s strong management team and customer-proven product have positioned the company to be a global leader in the enterprise work collaboration space,” said Hillel Moerman. “We see strong market growth potential, as virtually every company can use project management/collaboration software. The company continues its product innovation, and we are pleased to contribute to Clarizen’s overall product, market and company success.”

About Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing
Private Capital Investing (“PCI”) is Goldman Sachs’ investment platform dedicated to providing preferred equity and mezzanine capital to growth and middle market companies based in North America. PCI invests $20 million – $150 million of equity per transaction in the form of common, preferred, and structured equity. Contact: pci@gs.com

About Clarizen

Clarizen is the leader in enterprise-class work collaboration and project management solutions that harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy to use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,000 organizations across 76 countries, including more than 25 of the Fortune 500. In 2013, Clarizen received the SIIA CODiE Award for “Best Product Management Solution.” Founded in 2006, Clarizen is privately held with offices in San Mateo, California and Hod Hasharon, Israel. For more information, visit www.clarizen.com.

Clarizen is a registered trademark and the Clarizen logo is a trademark of Clarizen Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.