A company which intends to build an extensive product suite around customer relationship management platform Salesforce has raised £28 million in seed funding.
Unaric plans to buy, scale and consolidate 10-15 independent software vendors a year, with Salesforce module Salesbolt – which has more than 1,000 customers – its first deal.
The company was launched by Salesforce ecosystem serial entrepreneurs James Gasteen and Neil Crawford, alongside ex-Frontier Car Group unicorn founder Peter Lindholm and former M&A banker Moritz Birke.
The debt and equity seed round comes from LocalGlobe, Concentric, FJ labs and Atempo Growth, as well as angel investors from the ecosystem, such as OwnBackup founder Sam Gutmann, SaaS Guru Dave Kellogg and Hotjar founder Johan Malmberg.
More than 4,000 vendors supply software products connected to Salesforce, worth $29 billion a year in 2021 and predicted to grow to $68bn in 2026.
Unaric says these vendors offer point solutions but often find it difficult to scale, despite having strong technical products, due to the unique nature of their business models within this ecosystem.
“Unaric was started by founders for founders to help them release the value they have created,” said CEO Gasteen. “There is a mismatch in the Salesforce ISV ecosystem which we have experienced personally and we know how to put it right.
“We believe that by building suites of products that match more closely the needs of enterprises, we can help companies to significantly increase their sales, scale their businesses and sell to corporate buyers who would not normally buy from individual vendors.
“When software businesses become part of Unaric we can take all the admin off the founders’ plate and accelerate their growth channels, so that they can carry on building a great technical product.”
Chair Lindholm added: “We’ve put together a team of people who understand what it takes to scale a software company and there is a strong opportunity for consolidation in this sector right now.
“Our mission is to help founders of ISVs take the next step – whether they intend to stay with the business they founded or whether they are looking for an exit. Unaric will build industry-focused suites of companies that innovate on product, drive scale and increase revenues.”