As countless research reports have shown, supply chain management is one of the biggest priorities for business leaders at the moment. Looking to capitalize on one aspect of this is Enable, the vendor behind a rebate management platform. It has announced a Series D funding round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. This round will raise $120 million for further expansion.
The round values Enable a $1B Pre-Money Valuation. Bringing the total raised by the firm to $276 million in its Series A, B, and now D rounds. LightSpeed Ventures also participated in its Series C round that Insight Partners led. This time, LightSpeed led the round and was supported by all the previous lead investors. These included Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Insight Partners, and Sierra Ventures.
Andrew Butt, Co-founder and CEO of Enable, commented, “When we started this journey, rebates were quite often an afterthought, put in place because trading partners felt they needed to. Rebate programs were generally managed in Excel spreadsheets and not well communicated. Their real value wasn’t understood.
“By helping the market to understand how to strategically use rebates for growth and by demonstrating the financial outcomes our customers are achieving, we’re bringing to light what effective rebate management can deliver. With this round of funding, we will drive larger financial outcomes for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers who are feeling the crunch of the supply chain more than ever. Instilling partnerships with levels of collaboration and transparency they haven’t had is critical for each partner to achieve the outcomes they need to grow their business.”
Expanded board
As is usual with the funding round, there are also changes to the board. Arsham Memarzadeh, a Partner at Lightspeed, will join the board. Previously he has led investments for Lightspeed at Axonius, ClickUp, Personio, Verkada, and Wiz. He is on the board for several firms and an advisor to others Lightspeed has invested in.
Memarzadeh commented, “Rebate programs are becoming ever more complex. They now represent the majority of profit for distributors and retailers, and they are major growth drivers for manufacturers. These outcomes combine with growing recognition that rebates drive behaviour far more effectively than traditional pricing and discount mechanisms. It’s no longer optional to adopt a rebate management platform, and Enable is defining the future of the category.
“Since investing in Enable’s Series C last year, they’ve exceeded our expectations in what has otherwise been a tumultuous environment for enterprise software businesses. Lightspeed could not be more excited to deepen our partnership with Enable and be a larger part of their journey.”
The second appointment to the board is Dan Levin, the former President and COO at Box and still a member of Box’s board. Levin was instrumental in scaling the company and taking it public. Levin runs the Levin Leadership Group, in which he works 1:1 with a small and highly select group of CEO’s. At Box, Levin helped grow revenue by fifty times from roughly $10MM to $500MM — and grew headcount from roughly 50 to 1,700. He also helped take the company public. This experience will be invaluable for Enable as they consider whether an IPO is the next step on the journey.
Levin commented, “I am extremely excited to join the Enable board. Enable is bringing clarity and predictability to the billions of dollars of rebates between manufacturers, distributors and retailers — and in doing so, is saving millions of dollars for companies every day. I am thrilled to mentor and guide the Enable team to continue to scale the business and create even more value for our customers.”
Funding to power growth
Only a year after its last funding round, Enable is again seeking funds to keep the growth engine purring. The reason the investors are keen is obvious. The company is on track to double revenue by the end of the year and has achieved that or more every year since 2019, when it first launched in the USA.
The company now has five offices, located in the UK, San Francisco, Toronto (Canada), Sydney and Melbourne (Australia). Its 550 is based mainly in Canada and the UK, though it has a strong presence in the US. The investment, according to the release, is being used to further develop its product and expand its presence around the globe.
The firm falls short of saying whether it will open more offices, for example, in Europe, Asia or LATAM. There is also no mention of whether it will expand its partner program. It currently only has nine listed advisory, technology and industry partners. While it is looking for more and has a team of six looking after the program, it should look to expand this program with its unique offering to help grow revenue.
There is also little information about how it intends to extend its rebate management platform. One that already helps organisations such as Dillon Supply, Hantover, and Wickes recover money and boost growth. Used strategically, rebate management can help businesses protect margins, increase revenue, mitigate risk, lower costs, and improve customer loyalty.
Enable takes the complexity out of rebate management. Enabling finance and commercial teams to better manage rebate complexity and optimise sales and profit with automated real-time data and insights, accurate forecasting, and stronger cross-functional alignment. It provides visibility across the organisation, delivering visibility around rebates throughout the supply chain. With that visibility, organisations are able to better collaborate, negotiate and partner with both suppliers and partners.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
G2 has only very recently launched its rebate management category. Enable is top of the listing and has 24 companies with a score of 4.5 out of 5. Currently, the category does not seem to have sufficient reviews to create a Grid, but expect to Enable featuring strongly when it does.
Customers will want to hear where these investment dollars are going, and international firms will want to know whether Enable will open an office within their home country. These are questions that Butt is no doubt discussing with his board at the moment.
