Startup Studio Hexa acquires a majority participation in Veevart, a vertical SaaS platform for museums
Hexa Try something new. Instead of promoting startups from zero and incubating them during the first year, the Startup studio based in Paris acquires majority participation in WaterA vertical software company as a service for museums which provides solutions for ticket office, fundraising, management of CRM and the collection.
Hexa is a familiar name in the French technological ecosystem. The Startup studio initially started its life in 2011 as Efounders and regularly offers ideas for new technological companies. He tries to find the right founding team and help them with product design, marketing strategy, hiring and fundraising.
After this first phase, companies become appropriate independent startups, but Hexa retains an important participation on the CAP table. Some successful Hexa portfolio companies include In front,, Air,, Expenses And Swan.
But Veevart is not a new startup. It was founded in 2014 and is now working with 160 museums and cultural institutions of all sizes around the world. With his team of 70 people, Veevart is already profitable.
The product was designed as an all-in-one platform for museums, built on Salesforce. Museums that use Veevart can create and manage events, sell online and on -site tickets, manage subscriptions, automate communications to donors and integrate into the museum store.
Many museums use several tools for all these tasks. Having only one platform facilitates management and maintenance over time.
The reason why Veevart is based strongly on Salesforce goes to the founder of Veevart, Antonio Velasco Echeverry – earlier in his career, he had worked with Accenture and Salesforce.
“I wouldn’t say that I” chose “to build on Salesforce. People often assume that these decisions are intentional, but honestly, luck plays a big role. We did not choose Salesforce – it was simply the technology I knew best, “Velasco Echeverry told Techcrunch.
Despite certain platform limitations, he added that construction in addition to Salesforce has certain advantages such as safety, scalability and access to the entire Salesforce ecosystem.
Veevart has been kicked in the last decade and has been profitable for some time – “not incredibly profitable, but profitable,” said Velasco Echeverry.
“So when we started conversations with Hexa, we were not looking for too much money, but more for a partner who could help us achieve our income goals faster and with less pain,” he added.
With this investment, Hexa acts as a kind of practical investment partner. The Startup studio invests 5 million euros ($ 5.4 million at current exchange rates) to become the main shareholder in Veevart.
“Our goal is that Hexa can help us reach $ 20 million [annual recurring revenue]implement the best practices concerning the product, [go-to-market]Sales and leadership, ”said Velasco Echeverry.
Investment capital companies do not generally engage in small offers like this, while venture capital companies generally look for businesses with high growth potential. But Hexa thinks that this can raise Veevart to the higher level by providing operational expertise to accelerate the growth of the company.
