CloudHealth Technologies, a Boston-based cloud service management provider, has announced a $46 million (£35.8m) series D funding round with the company all set to go public.
The funding round was led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Meritech Capital Partners, and existing investors .406 Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Scale Venture Partners, taking overall funding to $86m across four rounds.
The company provides a platform that sits on top of other cloud tools, enabling organisations to better understand their cloud costs, whether it is by department, team, application, or business group, and allocate accordingly. Customers include Pinterest, Dow Jones and Imgur.
CloudHealth is clear in its position that the next step from here is towards IPO, although writing in a company blog post, CEO and co-founder Dan Phillips explains how the path to going public is ‘rarely a straight line’.
“Not only are we looking to be part of that elite club [of public Boston technology software companies], but we are also looking to capitalise on a unique set of market conditions and opportunities that have unfolded with the advent of cloud computing,” Phillips wrote.
“Not many companies have the opportunity to be the leader in a disruptive market with exponential growth and become the anchor company at the centre of the Boston software technology ecosystem for decades to come.”
Earlier this year, a report from Byron Deeter, of Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), affirmed that IPOs in the cloud space were drying up, although this was offset by M&A activity going through the roof. Only five companies – Apptio, Blackline, Coupa, Everbridge, and Twilio – went public last year, with this year seeing Cloudera, MuleSoft and Okta all take the plunge.
Could 2018’s first name be provisionally pencilled in therefore? Phillips told CloudTech in a statement that there was ‘no definitive timetable’ at the moment but noted the IPO market ‘is showing some positive signs, so it’s something we’ll continue to watch’.
“At this point we’re focusing more on hitting our short-term goals – continuing to capitalise on the market opportunity we have ahead of us,” he said. “Right now, we’re focusing on scaling our business in every way – expanding our product line, our geographical footprint, our partner portfolio and our talent base. This latest round of funding gives us the ability to continue to execute on our plans.”