Leapwork is preparing for another surge of growth. Since its 2021 Series B funding round led by KKR, it has grown its employee base by 400. The AI-powered test automation platform vendor is now looking to initiate another surge of growth as it announces several senior hires and a new head office in Copenhagen after it opened a third office in the United States, in Boston.
The new hires include Andras Mecser as CFO. Mecser joined in October and has previously served in CFO positions at DNA Payments Group, WordRemit and Ebury. He spent nearly 12 years as an engagement manager at McKinsey in the private equity and corporate finance division. It will be interesting to see whether his appointment signals another round of funding, bearing in mind his experiences, such as helping Ebury through its funding round. Mecser has taken on a hybrid role, CFO and part COO. He is responsible for revenue ops, the deal desk and legal, and cloud operations. (Source: Erevena). One of the first tasks he completed was the closure of a $30 million debt facility, which protects the company for at least 24 months, he believes.
Mecser commented, “Leapwork is uniquely positioned to radically disrupt the quality assurance space, with a truly unique offering and ambitious product vision presenting substantial market opportunity. This, combined with the rapid scaling currently underway and the calibre of talent led by two passionate co-founders, makes me very excited to be part of Leapwork’s ambitious growth journey. As CFO, I look forward to being a true partner to the business, and applying my skills and experience in taking fast-growing companies and helping them to professionalize and scale through strategic business, operational and financial optimization.”
North America is seen as the focus
Despite being headquartered in Copenhagen, the US is the main focus for its sales operation moving forward. More than half of its customers are already headquartered there. In addition to Mecser, it has also made several other senior appointments, some of which will be based in the US.
Luke von Schreiber joined the company in December 2022 as VP of Global Alliances & Channels. Based in New York, he joins from Pegasystems, where he was VP, Global Partner Management. Von Schreiber has more than 20 years of experience in the industry and worked in similar roles at Medallia, Vlocity and Zuora. He also spent more than 5 years at Salesforce, rising to Director of Alliances, also worked for Accenture for several years.
John Hong, VP of Worldwide Pre-Sales / Sales Engineering, will also work out of New York, he joined in October 2022. Before joining Leapwork, he worked in leadership positions at Redus Labs, MongoDB, Puppet Labs and BMC Software. He brings more than 20 years of experience working in pre-sales and engineering.
Octavian Chirodea joined in October 2022 as the VP of Worldwide Customer Success. He held a similar role at ThoughtSpot and, before that, worked at Qlik, Microstrategy and spent eight years at Cognos/IBM. He is currently based in London, according to LinkedIn.
While Mecser will be based in Copenhagen, two Leapwork founders, Christian Brink Frederiksen, CEO and Claus Topholt, Chief Product Officer, have moved to the US in the last year, demonstrating the importance of the US market to the firm. One wonders how long it will be before the firm moves its headquarters to the US. However, the 25 open positions indicate that growth in Europe is still vibrant, with positions in Copenhagen and London outnumbering all other locations.
Success in 2022
Leapwork has seen success for its customers leveraging the AI-powered, hyper-visual test automation technology it offers. In 2022 it attained its first certification from SAP for the SAP Solution Manager. This opened the SAP market, enabling SAP owners to integrate their test management and solution design repository directly into Leapwork.
It has succeeded in North America, with Mattress Firm and Premier Packaging selecting its solutions. In the UK, successes include West Midlands Trains, Newton Europe and Union Street Technologies.
It has also extended its partner ecosystems, forming a partnership with UST, a leading digital transformation solutions company and Microsoft Gold Partner Illumina Technology.
Christian Brink Frederiksen, co-founder and CEO at Leapwork, said, “2022 was a hugely successful year for Leapwork, and I would like to thank our growing network of customers and partners for trusting us to support them on their journey towards digital transformation. We are continuing to see a growing interest from organizations which realise the need for visual, AI-powered automation to drive efficiencies, maintain business continuity and mitigate risk in a digital-first world. With a stellar executive team in place and a product roadmap that will see us continue building the next generation of test automation, we are gearing up for another exceptional year of growth at Leapwork.”
In 2022 it was also recognised by Forrester, Gartner and G2. It was placed as a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave: Continuous Automation Testing Platforms, Q4 2022. The 2022 Gartner® Market Guide named it as a representative vendor. The latest G2 Grid for Automation Testing placed Leapwork as a leader in the sector and is also a current Momentum leader.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
While this business update included somewhat dated appointments, its importance is in what it aims to achieve in 2023. With investment in both, it is well set for further expansion in Europe and North America. In Europe, it continues to invest in key markets such as London and the new head office in Copenhagen, which indicates its ambitions. The new debt facility will enable the firm to invest in further growth without KKR or the founders diluting equity. With two founders moving to the US, the emphasis on North American growth is also re-affirmed. That it has appointed an experienced channel and alliance leaders should enable it to bring in more regional partners.
2023 could be an important year for the automation test provider. When companies are still transforming their operations, the automated test platform may save significant amounts of time and money for organisations. Leapwork claims its platform delivers an average ramp-up to full value in fewer than 30 days and 5 x ROI within the first 12 months. If that is the case, many organisations going through digital transformations should take note.
