Contract management startup Icertis becomes unicorn with $115M new round

Icertis, a Washington-headquartered startup that develops cloud-based software to help large companies manage contracts, has raised $115 million at more than a billion-dollar valuation to become the latest SaaS unicorn as it looks to further expand its footprint across the globe.

The Series E round for the 10-year-old firm was led by Greycroft and PremjiInvest, and saw participation from existing investors B Capital Group, Cross Creek Advisors, Eight Roads, Ignition Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and PSP Growth. The startup, which also has offices in Seattle, Pune, Singapore, London, Paris and Sydney, has raised $211 million to date.

Icertis said it would use the fresh capital to expand its technology platform to address wider use cases. It said it would also expand its blockchain framework that integrates with enterprise contract management platforms to solve challenges such as transparency in supply chain and certification compliance. Its revenue is at about $100 million currently — another key area it intends to scale.

The firm, which claims that five of the world’s most valuable companies are its clients (one of which is Microsoft), said it would also scale its sales and marketing efforts to reach “every leading company in the world” and expand its partner ecosystem. It is also looking to acquire startups that are a good fit to its contracting business.

Icertis lets users manage almost all kinds of contracts. Companies use Icertis’ products to handle procurement, sales and corporate contracts, including non-disclosure agreements. In addition to helping users create contracts, Icertis’ software also tracks when terms are met, ensures regulatory compliance and automates administrative tasks like sending renewal reminders.

Icertis, which was founded originally in India, helps customers manage more than 5.7 million contracts with an aggregate value of more than $1 trillion. In a statement, Mark Terbeek, a partner at Greycroft, said Icertis’ ability to win “a huge stable of blue-chip customers” was among the factors that attracted them to invest in the company.

“Nothing is more foundational than contract management as every dollar in and every dollar out of a company is governed by a contract. As the CLM market takes off, we are thrilled to have Premji Invest join the Icertis family, Greycroft double down by co-leading this round, and all investors re-up their commitment as we execute on our mission to become the contract management platform of the world,” said Icertis’ co-founder and CEO Samir Bodas, in a statement.

Icertis competes with a number of firms, including Apttus — which has raised north of $400 million, SpringCM — which was acquired by DocuSign, Conga — which has raised over $100 million, Ariba and Concord.