- Zip recently announced that it has raised $ 43 million in Series B funding. Here are the details.
Zip-a leading intake-to-procure solution-recently announced a $ 43 million Series B funding round led by YC Continuity with participation from Tiger Global and CRV. And it brings Zip’s total funding to $ 81 million and the company’s value to $ 1.2 billion in just 18 months since it was founded along with $ 25 million Series A and multiple seed-round investments during that time.
The company’s enterprise-grade platform allows employees to purchase business with consumer-style experience. Launched in 2020 by Rujul Zaparde and Lu Cheng, Zip boasts over 100 customers, including industry leaders such as Canva, Snowflake, Roblox, Coinbase, Airtable, Toast, Webflow, and Databricks.
The company also grew rapidly to more than 130 employees. The latest round of funding will be used to accelerate talent adoption and acquisition, with plans to double the number of employees by the end of 2022.
Finance and procurement teams from organizations of all sizes struggle to keep up with the rapid adoption of technology and services driven by digital innovation. And friction only escalated as purchasing decisions became more decentralized. Zip provides an effortless reception experience for any employee who requests a business -related purchase; adjusting that purchase through complex approval workflows; and complete visibility for all stakeholders throughout the process.
Zip starts with the easiest experience in the world for employees to initiate a hiring request, whether it’s software, services, or otherwise. And the employee starts by filling out a conditional intake form. From there, Zip generates a policy-based approval workflow involving any number of required stakeholders and steps, identically or sequentially. All stakeholders, from requesting to procurement to approving across all cross-functional teams, can see a clear view of the approvals required for their request. Financial, legal, procurement, IT, security, and privacy immediately and at any moment of time know exactly what is going on for any request, at any stage.
Zip delivers a consumer-grade and intuitive one-stop experience. And conversely, the company’s typical hiring process requires 3 to 6 teams and different systems, 5 or more hours of training just to start a request, and over 25 emails. In a distributed spend environment, CFOs and procurement leaders require employee adoption of their centralized systems to reap the benefits of everyone following the official process. At Zip, CFOs and procurement leaders see huge improvements in spending visibility, savings and compliance by giving employees a fast, easy experience they’re happy to use.
The Plus Zip platform provides pre-built, best-in-class, and configured code-free workflows for any non-technical employee to design a world-class process. And the procurement workflow is inherently complex because it spans so many different teams and systems. Zip uses a unique approach as the front-door and orchestration layer with flexible, pre-built connectors to key business systems including ERPs such as NetSuite, Workday, and more; contract management software such as Ironclad and DocuSign; IT ticketing software such as Jira and ServiceNow; and most importantly, communication software such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. Pre-built Zip connectors on other systems allow each team to use their preferred software tools-without having to log into Zip. For companies that don’t already have some or all of these systems, approvers approve or reject natively Zip or Slack and email.
IMPORTANT QUOTE:
“The simple task of purchasing software or services has become hopelessly complicated in even the most innovative companies in the world. As purchasing becomes increasingly decentralized, there are many stakeholders in the process-financial, legal, IT and the business users themselves – are increasingly frustrated.Zip is the first source of credibility for a modern decentralized procurement process.Zip provides an intuitive front door and clear visualization of the entire workflow so that every stakeholder has visibility into what’s going on.We invested in the world-class Zip team because they elegantly solved all of these business problems and created a product that all procurement, legal, finance, IT, and business. ”
– Ali Rowghani, managing partner of YC Continuity
“It’s amazing how quickly industry leaders across Procurement, Finance, and IT have moved to Zip. Before Zip, employees were bothered with multiple duplicative intakes across different systems, while Zip now streamlines the utilization process into an integrated, friction-free experience. ”
– Michael Denari, head of global spending and business systems at Canva
“Coinbase is the most trusted and secure crypto platform. It is very important for us to adhere to the best in class compliance and risk management standards, while creating a seamless hiring experience. In my 20+ years of acquisition, I have never been so excited about acquisition software. Our employees love Zip-it’s even become a verb here. ”
– Cindy Yan, VP of pay source and supplier management at Coinbase
“The explosion of SaaS and the decentralization of purchasing decisions has created tremendous friction for modern businesses. Day-to-day employees trying to solve business challenges and innovate through new software or service vendor purchases are largely unserved by outdated, manual processes and clunky, legacy software that no one wants to log in to. “
“I have personally witnessed how frustrating it is for business users to navigate byzantine processes in the procurement process. People are left wondering not only how to get started, but how to secure all the proper approvals to get what they need to do their jobs. This latest investment will allow us to bring our enterprise-grade platform to more forward-thinking businesses and fulfill our mission to reinvent the way organizations manage their acquisition process. ”
-Co-founder and CEO of Zip Rujul Zaparde