Prismatic is a versatile embedded iPaaS that helps B2B SaaS teams launch powerful product integrations up to 8x faster. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Prismatic CEO Michael Zuercher to learn more about the company.
Michael Zuercher’s Background
What is Zuercher’s background? Zuercher said:
“I founded my first startup when I was 19 to provide software to public safety agencies and spent 16 years growing that company. After a successful exit, I created Prismatic to solve a significant and painful problem we’d encountered at my first company — software integrations.”
Formation Of Prismatic
How did the idea for the company come together? Zuercher shared:
“During my time at my first company, we built and maintained over 600 integrations to our customers’ other software systems. Regardless of our growth stage, these integrations were always complicated and eventually consumed over half of our R&D capacity.”
“We soon realized we weren’t the only company dealing with this challenge. It’s a ubiquitous problem in the software industry. Existing integration solutions were created to connect a business’s internal software, but that doesn’t help a B2B SaaS company looking to integrate its product with the other products its customers use.”
“Motivated by a conviction that integrations shouldn’t be this hard, I co-founded Prismatic in 2019 with two former colleagues: Beth Harwood, Vice President of Marketing, and Justin Hipple, Chief Software Architect. Our goal was to create the solution we always wished we had. Drawing on our collective experience grappling with integrations, we set out to reinvent this process for B2B SaaS companies.”
“We designed Prismatic to help B2B SaaS companies more efficiently deliver product integrations and ultimately focus more of their engineering resources on core product innovation.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Zuercher explained:
“Prismatic is an embedded integration platform as a service (embedded iPaaS) specifically designed to help B2B SaaS connect their products to other products their customers use. Integrations are an absolute expectation in most markets, but most SaaS companies invest excessive time and resources to build them. This often becomes a real bottleneck to growth. Prismatic helps B2B SaaS companies provide integrations more efficiently with complete, end-to-end tools that enable both developers and non-developers to build, deploy, and manage integrations.”
“Our platform offers both low cow-code and code-native integration building experiences, pre-built app connectors, an intuitive management console, and embedded tools enabling customers to self-activate integrations or even build their own.”
“Other embedded iPaaS vendors offer low-code-only or full-code-only solutions. These platforms force a single narrow approach to integrations that doesn’t fit the way real B2B SaaS teams work. Low-code-only solutions leave teams unable to build complex integrations — which seems crazy for a SaaS company full of talented code-writing developers. Full-code-only solutions require developers to get involved to do even the simplest integration tasks.”
“Prismatic serves both developers and non-developers extremely well, giving everyone on a B2B SaaS team tools that fit their skillset and enabling them to participate in the full build/deploy/manage integration lifecycle. The flexibility to choose between low-code and full-code experiences allows teams to build any integration from simple to complex.”
Challenges Faced
What bottlenecks have Zuercher and the team faced in building the company? Zuercher noted:
“It’s not exactly a bottleneck, but embedded iPaaS is a relatively young category, and there are plenty of B2B SaaS product leaders who don’t yet know much about it. Our goal is to break through this barrier and educate the market about the benefits of an embedded iPaaS — like Prismatic — that’s specifically designed to help B2B SaaS companies provide product integrations more efficiently.”
Evolution Of Prismatic’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Zuercher noted:
“We built Prismatic from the beginning around the idea that an integration platform for B2B SaaS companies must serve both developers and non-developers. Initially, we created just enough features to prove our thesis. Guided by input from hundreds of conversations with customers and prospects, we enhanced our product.”
“We’ve doubled down on providing developers and non-developers alike with integration tools optimized for their respective skill sets. Most recently, we overhauled our low-code integration designer to provide an even more intuitive building experience for non-developers and launched a game-changing feature called code-native integrations, which empowers developers to write integrations completely in code in exactly the way they see fit. Our most recent launch added GitHubActions to Prismatic, making it even easier for teams to incorporate integrations into their existing CI/CD pipelines. These enhancements have been very well received by the market.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Zuercher cited:
“The past year has been remarkable for Prismatic. In January 2023, we raised a $9 million series A round, followed by our $22 million series B announced in January 2024. We tripled our customer base and achieved other significant growth milestones. Strong growth continues as we release new features and platform enhancements.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Zuercher about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“Before Prismatic, Sisu Software required six to eight months to take an integration from idea to go-live. Using our platform, the company now completes integrations in two weeks and can easily scale them across hundreds of customers. Their monthly churn has decreased by almost 3%, and their ARPU has risen from less than $100 per subscription to nearly $500.”
“‘Prismatic has been a game-changer for our team,’ said Colton McCormack, Lead Software Engineer – Integrations at Sisu. ‘The platform’s intuitive low-code builder, marketplace and robust monitoring capabilities allow us to deliver complex integrations faster and more reliably than ever before. Whether quickly wiring up an integration using pre-built components or developing custom logic, Prismatic gives us the flexibility and customer support we need.’”
Funding
When asking Zuercher about funding, he revealed:
“We have raised a total of $34 million from our seed, series A and series B rounds. We’ve been growing revenue rapidly for several years in a row, and anyone who knows how compound curves work knows we are making great progress.”
Differentiation From The Competition
“Prismatic is a true leader and innovator in the embedded iPaaS market. Our platform is built specifically to solve B2B SaaS integration challenges and has all the advantages that come from that singular focus. Among the solutions on the market, the vast majority of these solutions leave B2B SaaS teams locked into a low-code-only or code-only strategy. We are the only embedded iPaaS that provides first-class experiences for both low-code and full-code integrations and robust, end-to-end tooling to empower both developers and non-developers across the full build/deploy/manage integration lifecycle.”
“We give your team the choice of tools to fit the way you work and the power to build any integration you need, from simple to complex. Each quarter, we are named a G2 Leader and Momentum Leader, and we consistently lead the market in customer satisfaction.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Zuercher concluded:
“We’ve accelerated our innovation in 2024 and will continue driving the market forward to help B2B SaaS companies deliver product integrations more efficiently. We believe every member of a B2B SaaS team deserves integration tools they love, and we’ll keep will keep expanding our platform with that vision in mind.”
