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SOUTH JORDAN — For Lucid co-founder and CEO Karl Sun, Thursday was a day to celebrate. It was also a day to look ahead.
The South Jordan-based software company announced two major things on Thursday. The one to toast: It had reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue. The one that shows there's excitement for the future: It had completed a $52 million round of funding led ICONIQ Capital.
"It's a huge milestone," Sun said of reaching the $100-million mark. "It's somewhat of an arbitrary number, but it's a meaningful one, right? I think it demonstrates that there's real scale behind your company and that there's real demand and need for our products and services. So that's the most important one, I think it shows that there are a lot of people out there who need our products."
In the fall, Lucid will celebrate its 10th year as a company. During that time, it’s seen its flagship product, Lucidchart, a web-based platform that allows users to collaborate on diagramming and whiteboarding, grow to be used by over 100,000 companies with 20 million users in 180 countries worldwide.
"It's taken us, that long to get here," Sun said. "But at the same time, there's a lot more ahead of us going forward. We think it's a milestone, it's one worth celebrating. It's one that demonstrates to our customers that we're here and we're here to stay, but I think it's also a reminder to us that there's a lot more ahead, there's a lot more that we can do."
Coming into 2020, Lucid had spent less than $20 million of the funding it had previously raised. But with the company growing (Lucid opened up an office in Melbourne, Australia, in January, a year after it opened up in Amsterdam) and with the coronavirus upending the economy, Lucid felt it was time to raise additional funds to be able to continue to innovate and invest instead of feeling like it needed to be conservative.
Utah-based Podium announces $125M in new funding
Eric Rea always had high ambitions for Podium — but maybe not this high."We look to invest in category leaders that we believe will continue to define the market," said Evan Lintz at ICONIQ Capital. "We are confident in Lucid’s longstanding recipe for success: product innovation, a highly scalable business model, and capital efficiency. We are eager to help Lucid continue to define the market and scale across the globe."
Through the years, Sun said, there have been investors wanting to put more money into Lucid. It felt like the right now was the time to take them up on that offer. Meritech Capital, Spectrum Equity and new investor, Utah-based Cross Creek also participated in the funding.
Sun said the funding will be used to innovate the products, marketing and international expansion.
"So if there are things that will help us move forward quickly, the vision of being this leader and bringing visual reasoning and this visual workplace to people, I think we're always interested in exploring," Sun said.
According to Sun, over the last month, Lucid has seen an increased demand for its products as the coronavirus pandemic has forced most businesses to work away from the office.
"I think it's a better time than ever for us to really get out there and show people how our product can help them, especially as teams are working more remotely and finding new ways to work together and collaborate and make sure that they're staying on the same page," Sun said.
