Celonis, a Munich-based process mining startup, has accepted $27.5M from VC companies Accel Partners and 83North Venture Capital to expand its already successful business into other markets, like the United States. As Celonis is a German company, its main markets are in Germany and Europe, despite the product’s applicability worldwide.
Celonis emphasizes the importance of process mining, a subset of big data mining. Process mining focuses on individual business processes. Alexander Rinke, CEO and co-founder of Celonis, gives the example of identifying a standard customer service procedure that frequently resulted in callbacks, indicating that the response was not clear enough for consumers. This type of information is beneficial to businesses as it allows management to identify what particular processes are creating inefficiencies in operations, as well as some hints for how to improve. Incorporated in 2011, Celonis has integrated with around 60 ERP IT systems, serves 200+ customers, and is already profitable. Why does it need additional VC funding if it already makes its own profits?
I believe that it’s great that VCs have provided additional funds, as process mining is widely applicable to many businesses and is a useful operational tool. With additional automation and computer use, the amount of data becomes difficult for consultants to process, but Celonis has the ability to give data analysts a new tool that can do make their job a lot easier and more effective.