Cloud Elements raises $13M in Series B funding round

Wednesday January 11, 2017 Tags: Denver, Cloud Elements, Tom Roberts, Harbert Growth Partners, Mark Greene, API, Rally Ventures, Access Ventures, Grotech Ventures

DENVER  -- Cloud Elements, a leader in API integration, announced the close of a $13 million Series B funding round led by Harbert Growth Partners, bringing the company's total funding to $21.2 million to date.

Since launching the first solely dedicated platform for integrating APIs two years ago, Cloud Elements said its revenue has increased by nearly 40 percent quarter-over-quarter, making it the fastest-growing API management vendor in the industry. During this time, Cloud Elements said it has established a unique approach to API integration, enabling developers to seamlessly unify all the APIs they work with, whether the APIs are from other cloud services, connected things or enterprise applications.

"APIs are what enable businesses to really embrace digital transformation. Gartner's CIO Agenda Survey found that an estimated 28 percent of a CIO's budget is going toward digitalization by 2018," said Tom Roberts, a general partner at Harbert and new Cloud Elements board member.

"Cloud Elements has been a pioneer in establishing this new space of enabling all APIs to work together, which is reinforced by their fast growth since they've launched their platform. We're excited to support their next-generation initiatives for the modern business and are to see where they lead."

"Over the past few years, the industry has witnessed exponential growth in public and private APIs,” said Mark Greene, Cloud Elements co-founder and CEO.

“Businesses now rely on APIs as a critical component of daily operations, and the number of APIs needed per business will only continue to rise, leading to higher costs and delays for go-to-market strategies, customer programs and more.

"Our vision for the next generation of digital business is to unify the world of APIs in such a way that makes it easy for businesses to quickly and seamlessly integrate applications of any kind at a much lower cost -- something that has only been a daydream of developers until now."

At the time of the company's Series A funding in 2014, Cloud Elements offered only a handful of API integrations. Today, the company said it has a catalog of more than 120 pre-built API connectors with plans to continue the momentum of product development with the new funding.

Additionally, the new funding will enable Cloud Elements to align with its "customers first" core business strategy, which focuses on priorities for existing customers such as customer success organization, support and delivery.

Cloud Elements said it will invest in growing its Denver employee base as well as in sales, marketing and brand reach. Rally Ventures, Access Ventures and Grotech Ventures also participated in the Series B funding round.

In 2016, Cloud Elements said it hit several major milestones, including:

• In November, Cloud Elements introduced APIs that can be distributed to marketplaces like the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API Marketplace.
• Cloud Elements announced a strategic partnership with Sage in July to enable third-party developers to create a powerful cloud accounting platform.
• Cloud Elements' award wins included: "Denver Gazelle," one of the city's fastest growing companies of 2016; top workplace in Outside Magazine's "The Best Places to Work: 2016" for second consecutive year; Stevies' Top Employer of the Year for software companies with up to 250 employees.
• Inclusion in Gartner Magic Quadrants: Full Life Cycle API Management 2016, Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service, Worldwide 2015, and Application Services Governance 2015.