Pigment simply closed an thrilling $88M Collection C (TechCrunch protection right here). The corporate is quickly rising as the worldwide chief within the subsequent technology of enterprise planning platforms (aka Anaplan alternative), a testomony to the ability of a world-class group delivering nice execution persistently over years.

Whereas we at FirstMark are definitely excited to have been part of the journey as traders for the reason that seed spherical, this spherical can also be noteworthy when it comes to what it might (or could not) sign concerning the broader market. A number of ideas:

Development market: The final 18 months have been extremely sluggish within the progress market. But this progress spherical at Pigment was fully preemptive, and extremely aggressive, involving various prime corporations. What does it imply for the expansion market? Perhaps it’s an instance of continued flight to high quality throughout a downmarket part – traders in search of A+ firms. However possibly it’s additionally an indication of the expansion market coming again to life, progressively. I definitely get an impression, speaking to my progress associates, that everybody is antsy to do extra offers after largely sitting on their fingers for the final 18 months, and the market has recalibrated considerably to extra cheap ranges. The plain caveat is that one shouldn’t derive sample from a small n, however anectodally, one other portfolio firm of mine can even announce a progress spherical quickly.

Not AI: The one a part of the enterprise market that has been energetic, after all, has been Generative AI. Apparently, whereas it shortly rolled out some nice AI options as a part of its platform, and whereas it has spectacular information infrastructure on the core of it, Pigment will not be an AI firm. As a subsequent technology enterprise planning software program platform, it provides a mission vital product, going after a really giant market alternative. Maybe that is an fascinating instance for various firms on the market, that they don’t must essentially reposition themselves as AI-native firms in an effort to get curiosity from traders.

World firm, with European HQ: It’s nonetheless generally counter intuitive to some within the US that nice, startups might be inbuilt different geographies and go on to be globally dominant. Sure, the considering goes, there’s been a technology or two of European and Israeli firms that dominated their classes, however every time the standard journey was to start out in Europe, after which flip to the US — founders would transfer, firms would “flip” and change into Delware companies, and the HQ could be relocated to San Francisco or NYC. None of this occurred with Pigment – each Eleonore and Romain, the corporate’s co-CEOs, nonetheless stay in France; the corporate is a French legislation entity and whereas the US group is more and more giant, HQ stays in Paris. But Pigment has signed most of the most seen logos within the US as prospects – Figma, Brex, Carta, Airtable, and so forth., demonstrating that the world for excellent SaaS merchandise has actually change into one large market.

Congrats Eleonore, Romain and your entire Pigment group! Excited for the following steps within the journey.