Three years after the last funding round of 28 million euros, Platform.sh announced a series D of 140 million dollars. The operation brings three new funds to its capital (Digital+ Partners, Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and Revaia); Historical Investors (BGV, (Eurazio, Hi Innov and Pertech) also participated in the operation. With this amount, the company, which has successfully established itself in the US and Northern Europe for a long time, intends to continue its strategy of international expansion and acquisitions to continue developing its products.
Think international from the start
Founded in 2015 by Frédéric Plais, Damien Tournoud and Ori Pekelman, Platform.sh has given itself a mission ” ofHelp digital teams develop and scale their websites or applications faster”, Fabien Plais said, CEO of the company. And this ambition, the company has always thought it international. Six years ago, Frederic Plais moved to San Francisco (USA), where the company has 130 employees out of a total of 350 employees. ” noWe wanted to expand into the US from the beginning. It is not possible to be only a European player in the cloudEntrepreneurs believe. If we make this choice, we must be serious. I moved in, we put together a great team there. » The bet is won! Today, the company has 55% of its customers, with the rest concentrated more in Western and Northern Europe. The company is now targeting Asia.
Platform.sh mainly targets large accounts and works with big names like Adobe, Nestlé, Olympique de Marseille and Gault et Millau. ” we are Also work with startups. In reality we are able to address any type of company, but the more sites or applications the company has to manage, the greater our impact and it saves time. »
Make new acquisitions
Beyond its geographic expansion and growing its portfolio, Platform.sh will focus on two other key areas: its technology and its acquisitions. ” noWe are putting a lot of resources into our technology and we will continue to invest in it, because this sector is evolving very quickly and there are many big players in it.” , recognized Frederick Plyce. Innovation is therefore an obligation to get by. Several recruitments are also planned for the successful completion of this project.
At the same time, Platform.sh wants to study future acquisitions like Blackfire made a year ago. ” noWe have completed this acquisition with a view to operational synergies”, Frederick Plyce specifies. Blackfire code works on all observable parts of performance. A point on which Platform.sh wanted to move on Given the success of this collaboration, the founders intend to pursue this strategy by making other acquisitions. ” noWe already have companies in mind, but we are really opportunistic. We do a lot in Platform.sh from the first line of code to ramping up the application, so there’s a lot of scope for development. »
A green digital contribution
The environmental impact of digital is now well known and many voices are calling for the development of more responsible and sustainable technologies. Aware of these issues, the three founders have been working on this topic and their BCorp certification for two years. ” noWe started by appointing an expert on the subject, who contributed to the IPCC report.” , explains Frederick Plyce. The company also called on startup Greenlee to calculate its carbon impact. Verdict: Opportunity I, the company is doing quite well.
However, the biggest impact is still on the servers. But thanks to its solutions, Platform.sh already makes it possible to optimize server usage and therefore divide energy consumption by 10. Frédéric Plais urges entrepreneurs to think about the data center location they choose. ” forActions on each country’s energy choices, report [relatif à la quantité de CO2 produite par kWh, ndlr] Varies from 1 to 7.
The last benefit for startups: the optimization of applications that Blackfire.io allows to achieve ” TheOur solutions help identify problems and provide ways to improve them, which improves site performance » and reduces the number of servers required.
