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The
new funding values Qualtrics at $2.5 billion, the company said
on Wednesday, a sharp increase over its $1 billion valuation at
its last funding round in 2014.
"This is definitely a pre-IPO round," said Ryan Smith, founder
and chief executive.
Venture capital firms Insight Venture Partners, Accel and
Sequoia Capital provided the funding. Accel has put more money
into Qualtrics over the last five years - about $150 million
total - than it has put into any other company it has backed,
said Ryan Sweeney, investing partner at Accel. The firm rarely
invests more than $100 million into its companies, he said.
Qualtrics makes research software that allows companies to track
the experiences of both their customers and employees through
market research, employee evaluations, website feedback and
other data collection. It has about 8,500 business customers
around the world. Smith said the company will hit more than $250
million in revenue this year.
Qualtrics is starting the preparations for an IPO, said Sweeney,
and part of that preparation includes adding Murray Demo, the
chief financial officer of software company Atlassian Corp <TEAM.O>,
to the board of directors, an appointment the company also
announced on Wednesday. Bringing on leadership from seasoned
chief financial officers is often one of the final steps before
a company's IPO.
Neither Sweeney nor Smith offered a timeline for Qualtrics' IPO.
Qualtrics is based in Utah, and while it has 10 offices
globally, it does not have a presence in Silicon Valley. The
company offers the latest sign that tech hubs that are maturing
elsewhere in the country are starting to produce
multi-billion-dollar companies.
Smith points to Snap Inc <SNAP.N>, the Venice, California-based
parent company of the messaging app Snapchat, that had an IPO
last month at a $24 billion valuation, and Jet.com, the
e-commerce site from New Jersey that was bought by Wal-Mart
Stores Inc <WMT.N> last year for about $3 billion, as other
examples of success bred outside of Silicon Valley.
(Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Bill Rigby)
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