Rocketlane has announced a $24 million Series B funding round for its customer-centric PSA solution. The round was co-led by 8VC, Matrix Partners India, and Nexus Venture Partners. It brings the total raised by Rocketlane to$45 million. Following its $18 million Series A funding round in 2022, which the same investors led.
While it is unusual to have the same investors for both Series A and Series B, it demonstrates the faith that they have in the leadership and its direction.
Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Nexus Ventures Partners, commented, “We are thrilled to double down on backing Sri and the team at Rocketlane as they transform the PSA and customer onboarding categories with their industry-leading, AI-powered product and fast-growing list of marquee customers.”
Srikrishnan Ganesan, CEO & Co-Founder of Rocketlane, stated, “Our unique combination of high-velocity innovation and robust capabilities sets us apart and has helped us consistently win large, forward-thinking customers, including public companies. With this new investment, we are committed to accelerating our AI roadmap and redefining the client portal experience. We have equipped ourselves to handle the challenges of rapid growth, and continue delivering exceptional value to our clients.”
Looking further forward, in a soon to be published interview with Ganesan, he revealed what the vision of the SaaS vendor is. He said, “Our vision is to elevate the whole client project delivery experience, both for internal teams working with clients, as well as for the clients themselves. And to become the default offering in this space.”
Changing the face of PSA
There are a lot of PSA tools in the market currently. However, most have existed for a while, and some have rearchitected for the cloud. But few have grown as rapidly as Rocketlane has, with over 500 customers and tripled its revenue in the last year. Founded only in 2020, the growth is impressive.
The solution starts with a focus on the customer engagement element that PSA solutions often omit. As a customer-centric PSA, it begins with the onboarding process and then manages the whole engagement with customers, with a focus on SaaS vendors. Elements include:
- Project Management
- Financial Management
- Time Tracking
- Resource Management
- A multi-lingual customer portal
- Partner central to manage partners
- Business IQ for insights about financials, utilisation and customer sentiment
Rocketlane also supports several integrations with both Financial Management solutions and CRM solutions. Thus ensuring that data flows automatically through the business without rekeying.
Impressive growing customer list
The customer list is already impressive, with key customers including GoCardless, Icertis, Zenoti, Moveworks, Everstage and Clari. Recent customer wins include industry-leading names like Salesloft, OpenGov, LivePerson, Fivetran and Uniqus.
Nav Kalra, VP of Professional Services at OpenGov, a Rocketlane customer, said, “In a sea of legacy tools, Rocketlane stands out as a modern, disruptive force in the PSA software landscape with its all-in-one platform. The intuitive interface and unparalleled client-facing experience make managing client projects a breeze. We’re thrilled to partner with Rocketlane as we continue to revolutionize the way we work.”
Siva Rajamani, CEO of Everstage, commented, “We have accelerated customer wins by 35% and helped our post-sales teams build stronger partnerships with customers from the start of their journey. Rocketlane elevates our customer experience in delivery with strong automation and consistency into our execution with customers.”
The customer base is mainly spread across the United States and India. However, there is a growing presence in Europe, and this funding will help accelerate growth in that region.
Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner at 8VC, commented, “Rocketlane has reshaped enterprise client project delivery, replacing tired, legacy PSA approaches with elegant software and deployment. Speed and agility matter when you become the leader in a category like customer onboarding.
“Rocketlane has achieved precisely that since their Series A, showing themselves to be both visionaries and incredibly hard-nosed executors. We are thrilled to continue supporting Rocketlane and Sri, Deepak, and Vignesh, founders who lead with a rare blend of thought, culture, and action.”
Artificial Intelligence is important for several reasons
Where Rocketlane has found a growing niche of customers is in AI SaaS vendors. These vendors often see onboarding as a more complex process than other vendors. While not explained, this may be because vendors must ensure that the data is clean before being ingested into the solution from multiple sources. Rather than a simpler traditional SaaS deployment. The Rocketlane solution enables vendors to provide an accelerated onboarding journey that holds customers accountable. It also shortens time-to-value and helps begin expansion conversations earlier, which in turn can lead to an increase in revenue.
Rocketlane has also developed its own AI capabilities. It will launch more in the coming months. The first iteration was Resource AI, which enables users to optimise project outcomes with available resources. Whether that is for profitability, workload, or utilization.
Srikrishnan Ganesan added, “The team is excited about our upcoming innovations – especially the very unique AI capabilities and the first-of-its-kind dynamic client portal in this space – that will expand the gap between Rocketlane and the competition.”
Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India, added, “The Rocketlane team has a great opportunity to replace legacy PSA software with their AI roadmap and great user experience. The company has executed this vision with rapid adoption and has solidified its industry-leading position. We are excited to reinforce our commitment to them.”
Growth and expansion
The funding will help accelerate growth worldwide. It has already started recruiting with 16 open roles in India and the US. It has also appointed Rao Adavikolanu as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Rao will be responsible for driving Rocketlane’s market presence and strategic initiatives.
Rao joins from Pilot.com, where he was also Chief Marketing Officer. He also spent two years as CMO of Clarizen, the PSA vendor acquired by Planview. Furthermore he held senior marketing roles at a who’s who list of SaaS vendors, including Apttus, Intacct, Alteryx and Oracle.
Rao commented on LinkedIn, “I am thrilled to announce that I will be joining Rocketlane as the Chief Marketing Officer. Rocketlane is a leader in Customer Onboarding & PSA Software, and I am excited to be working with an amazingly talented team to take Rocketlane to new heights!”
The rapid growth has been recognised within the G2 Momentum grid for PSA, where it has achieved a Momentum leader position for the last three quarters. It is also the highest performer in the most recent G2 Grid for PSA overall and in the mid-market and enterprise segments. Additionally, it achieved 199 G2 badges in the Spring 2024 report.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Rocketlane is living up to its name with rapid growth and many praises from customers Already. That it has managed to attract the likes of Icertis and Clari is impressive and potentially worrying for some of its rivals. Founders Srikrishnan Ganesan, Vignesh Girishankar, and Deepak Bala seem to have found a messaging and product focus that attracts large SaaS vendors and, with the additional finance, could see it grow exponentially.
The appointment of Adavikolanu will help them achieve the growth plans, as he brings his experience to bear. Having helped Clarizen and Apttus to grow substantially during his tenure at both those companies. What will be interesting to see is how Ganesan evolves the product moving forward. While AI is now expected, what direction and other functionality will he add to the platform in the future?
