Product Lifecycle Management and cloud veterans from Agile Software and Salesforce create PLM solution built on modern enterprise cloud platform
San Jose, California, March 10, 2016 – Propel, a modern Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) provider built 100 percent on the Salesforce platform, announced today that it has raised a $4.2 million Series A financing round. The round was led by Cloud Apps Capital Partners, with participation from Salesforce Ventures and SignalFire. The investment will help the company propel its sales and marketing efforts, as well as accelerate development of its modern cloud PLM solution for manufacturers. Matt Holleran from Cloud Apps Capital Partners will join the company’s board of directors.
Propel has created a customer-centric PLM solution built on Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform. Unlike legacy PLM systems that are limited to managing hardware, Propel helps everyone involved in launching new products—including engineers, software developers, sales channels and partners—coordinate all the product, customer and service information needed for a product to be successful. With Propel, manufacturers of all sizes can capture customer requests, collaborate on the content that defines modern products, and ensure customers embrace products after purchase.
Propel was founded by manufacturing, PLM and cloud veterans. Ray Hein, Chief Executive Officer, was an early employee at Agile Software (now Oracle), serving in a number of positions, including VP of Product Strategy. He also was EVP at Centric Software, a PLM provider for retailers, and SVP at Apttus, a leading Salesforce partner. Ron Hess, Chief Technology Officer, was at Salesforce for over 7 years and also served as a principal architect at Kenandy, a cloud ERP company built on the Salesforce platform. Brian Sohmers, Chief Product Officer, tripled revenues at Equilar, where he was General Manager and EVP of Products. The Propel team is joined by experts from Agile Software, Oracle and SAP.
Comments on the News
“After my experience with so many product and manufacturing companies, it became clear to me that they needed a modern way to manage the entire product experience,” said Ray Hein, CEO, Propel. “Our vision is to help everyone involved in products better engage with customers, launch more successful products and propel their business. Cloud Apps Capital, Salesforce Ventures and SignalFire are experienced and visionary investors, and their funding will help us lay the foundation for our customers’ and our company’s success.”
“Propel is in a unique position to redefine how global manufacturing companies deliver products to their customers, channels and partners,” said Matt Holleran, General Partner, Cloud Apps Capital Partners. “The team has a proven track record in solving complex manufacturing problems and developing products for global enterprises. By building PLM on a modern cloud platform, Propel offers a powerful enterprise-class cloud app that breaks the mold of legacy PLM solutions.”
Additional Resources
About Propel
At Propel, we make PLM that’s made for everyone. Created by Product Lifecycle Management and cloud veterans, Propel helps everyone connect with your customers, products and services, so you can propel innovation and propel your business. With Propel, you can easily manage all the hardware, software, services, and customer information that help customers embrace your products. Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Propel is a modern PLM solution built 100% on the Salesforce App Cloud. For more information, visit www.propelPLM.com.
About Cloud Apps Capital Partners
Cloud Apps Capital Partners is a market-focused venture capital firm helping early-stage companies in cloud business application markets build the next generation of global, category-leading businesses. The firm has more direct industry, operational and investing experience in building global cloud business application companies than any other early-stage venture capital firm. For entrepreneurs, this translates into unparalleled access to business-model knowledge, a network of impact executives, relationships with leading cloud companies and the optimal funding model to lay the right foundation to build a global category-leading company. For more information on Cloud Apps Capital Partners, visit www.cloudappscapital.com.
About SignalFire
SignalFire is a complete redesign of the modern venture firm based on six years of careful study and development by a team of world class investors and engineers trained at General Catalyst, KPCB, Andreessen Horowitz, Yahoo and Google. The end result is a radically different model that brings unparalleled firepower at the seed stage to solve the biggest entrepreneur pain points. Our distributed network approach provides expert advice from some of the world's best entrepreneurs, product & engineering leaders in virtually every key discipline and industry (see: angel.co/signalfire). We have developed a first of its kind centralized infrastructure to help with recruiting exceptional talent, business development, customer acquisition as well as educational & community events. We don’t follow the crowd, and almost always lead our investment rounds as the first institutional investors in exceptional companies. You can read more about SignalFire at: https://medium.com/signalfire-fund.
About Salesforce Ventures
Salesforce Ventures—Salesforce’s corporate investment group—invests in the next generation of enterprise technology to help companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Portfolio companies receive funding as well as access to the world’s largest cloud ecosystem and the guidance of Salesforce’s innovators and executives. With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage the expertise of the Salesforce Foundation to incorporate its 1-1-1 model of integrated philanthropy to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce has invested in more than 150 enterprise cloud startups since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures.
