Cognite becomes unicorn as funding round raises Cognite’s valuation to $1.6 billion, backing is one of the largest private investment rounds for a SaaS company in Europe
OSLO, Norway, AUSTIN, Texas - 19 May 2021 - Cognite, a global leader in industrial software innovation, announced today that it has signed an investment round of $150M with leading global growth equity firm TCV, valuing the company at $1.6B. This investment marks one of the largest funding rounds for a SaaS company in Europe and confirms industrial digitalization as a global megatrend. The new valuation round constitutes unicorn status for Cognite.
“Cognite has had a remarkable growth journey since its founding in 2017, attracting top talent from across the globe, working feverishly to develop, deploy and verify the impact from its industrial software technology. As the global growth continues across industry verticals, there is significant interest from companies to partner with Cognite. We are very pleased to welcome TCV, a top-tier growth equity firm, on board, especially given their strong track record from building and scaling enterprise software companies globally,” said Øyvind Eriksen, President and CEO of Aker. “The investment is a testament to the Cognite growth journey so far and to its future potential. Moreover, it highlights the significant value creation taking place in Aker’s industrial software portfolio.”
TCV has a broad network and expertise in successfully scaling technology companies, including Netflix, OSIsoft, Splunk, Airbnb and Spotify. This new partnership allows Cognite to harness TCV’s expertise in international expansion for industrial software companies and complements earlier funding by global venture capital firm Accel, as both are committed to backing category-defining businesses. The partnership coupled with Aker, Cognite’s majority stakeholder, will accelerate the full-scale data-driven transformation of legacy industries to help make them more sustainable and profitable through digitalization and data. As part of the transaction, Jake Reynolds, general partner at TCV with a 20-year history in venture capital and technology investing, is joining the Cognite Board of Directors.
“Cognite is building the future by redefining modern industrial data management,” said Jake Reynolds. “Cognite is emerging as a leader of the pack through their proven industrial software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions as the world turns to digitalization to truly transform, and we look forward to partnering with them to revolutionize the industry as they grow and scale.”
Cognite’s flagship Industrial Data Ops product: Cognite Data Fusion® (CDF) is currently digitalizing asset-intensive industries globally by making industrial data more accessible and meaningful to humans and machines, enabling clients to create value through AI-based applications and solutions. CDF is also a critical tool used by companies to actively participate in the energy transition through data liberation and contextualization to address transparency, accountability, and sustainability. CDF is deployed by Cognite customers worldwide including: bp, Saudi Aramco, Alfa Laval, Statnett, and Mitsubishi.
“Cognite is on a strong trajectory to help transform industry, and since our founding four years ago, we have managed to attract top global talent, and partner with top industrial companies to accelerate modern industrial data management worldwide,” said Dr. John Markus Lervik, CEO and co-founder of Cognite. “The partnership with TCV allows us to amplify our software solutions to empower asset-intensive businesses to improve their sustainability and profitability of operations, and perfectly complements the extensive industrial knowledge brought in by our majority shareholder, Aker.”
Cognite continues rapid expansion, growing in valuation threefold since November in part due to a global collaboration with Microsoft and inclusion as a Top 200 Global Independent Software Vendor (ISV), a partnership with Accel, and post COVID demand for digitalization across industries. Cognite was founded in 2017 and is one of the fastest-growing industrial software companies in the world with over 500 employees across offices in Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East.
Founded in 1995, TCV was established with a clear vision: to capture opportunities in the technology market through a specialized and consistent focus on investing in high-growth companies. Since inception, the firm has built a track record of successfully backing public and private businesses that have developed into dominant industry players across internet, software, FinTech, and enterprise IT. TCV has invested over $14 billion to date and has helped guide CEOs through more than 125 IPOs and strategic acquisitions. TCV has invested in cutting edge technology companies including OSIsoft, Airbnb, Brex, ByteDance, Facebook, Hotmart, Netflix, Peloton, Spotify, Zillow, Clio, Redis Labs, Klarna, Mollie, Nubank, Payoneer, Revolut, Toast, Wealthsimple and WorldRemit. TCV has successfully executed over 350 investments of varying structures, including mid-stage, late stage and public company investments, and has offices in Menlo Park, New York, and London. For more information about TCV, including a complete list of TCV investments, visit https://www.tcv.com/.
Cognite is a global industrial software-as-a-service (SaaS) company supporting the full-scale digital data-driven transformation of asset-intensive industries around the world. Our core product, Cognite Data Fusion® (CDF), is an industrial data operations and contextualization platform, putting raw data into real-world industrial context, enabling rapid application & solution creation at scale. CDF powers companies with contextualized OT/IT/ET data to develop solutions that increase safety, sustainability, efficiency and drive revenue. Visit us at www.cognite.com and follow us on Twitter @CogniteData or at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cognitedata
Michelle Holford, Global PR Lead, Cognite
+1 (512) 744-3420 (US) or +47 482 90 454 (Norway)
michelle.holford@cognite.com
Katja Gagen, Head of Marketing at TCV
+1 (415) 690-6689
kgagen@tcv.com