- Interactive SaaS design platform company Ceros announced a strategic investment from Sumeru Equity Partners (SEP). These are the details.
Interactive SaaS design platform company Ceros announced a strategic investment from Sumeru Equity Partners (SEP), which is a growth-focused technology investment firm. Management and existing investors had participated in the $100 million investment. Additional terms of the transaction were undisclosed.
Ceros is essentially a cloud-based design platform that enables brands and publishers to create immersive, scalable, and interactive content without writing a single line of code. And the Ceros platform empowers some of the world’s largest brands like NBC, United Airlines, Snap, McKinsey, IBM, Condé Nast, JP Morgan, Red Bull, Pinterest, and several others in transforming their digital experiences.
Ceros’ 500+ customer base have shown an increased need for engaging digital content. And in the last few months, those customers have doubled their run rate of creation of live experiences on the Ceros platform as companies have prioritized their digital presence to the highest level.
SEP’s investment was led by Sanjeet Mitra, John Brennan, George Kadifa, and Vinay Kumar. As a part of the transaction, existing Ceros investors will continue as significant shareholders and board members Lawson DeVries (Managing General Partner of Grotech Ventures) and Laura Sachar (Managing Partner of StarVest Partners) will continue as Board Directors.
Canaccord Genuity served as financial advisor and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisor to Sumeru Equity Partners. And Cooley served as legal advisor to Ceros and existing shareholders.
KEY QUOTES:
“I’m clearly biased. But Ceros has always been a world class product with a world class team. And now we have a world class partner. I’m beyond excited about the next chapter and the impact we will have on the industry with our new friends and partners at SEP.”
“SEP has been tracking Ceros’ growth for more than two years, including through the pandemic, giving us all a chance to get to know each other and build trust during challenging times. Just as importantly, they recognized the growing relevance of the digital creative space and our growing dominance in it.”
“SEP’s strengths lie in data, analytics, and operational support in scaling SaaS businesses and our strengths lie in design, creativity, and a great product. When we join the two, we have a marriage of limitless potential.”
— Ceros CEO and founder Simon Berg
“We are super excited about our partnership with Ceros, as we’re seeing significant acceleration in the creative software and content creation spaces—already a multi-billion dollar market—as enterprise communication activity and budgets further shift in that direction. Ceros has built a leadership position in that space by prioritizing platform innovation and immersive design simplicity. Ceros’ core proposition that ‘experience matters’ has been emblematic of how the business has scaled—focusing first on customer needs through a relentless commitment to product, building a terrific team, and creating an inspiring, energetic culture.”
— Brennan, Kadifa, and Mitra
