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Image credit: Odoo

Belgium-based Odoo is a provider of all-in-one, open-source business software for small and medium-sized businesses worldwide. The company caters to businesses’ needs such as CRM, e-commerce, accounting, inventory, point of sale, project management, etc.

Odoo becomes a unicorn

In a recent development, the company announced that it has secured €180M from growth equity investor Summit Partners.

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In a blog post, Fabien Pinckaers, Founder of Odoo, mentions, “One Hundred and Eighty Million EUROS”. This is a lot of money. It’s great for our ego…but it won’t impact the company, or the community, as there will be no cash injected in the company.”

“Why didn’t we do a capital increase? Mostly because we don’t need to: Odoo is profitable, and our cash flow allows us to sustain a growth of 60 per cent per year. Also, I intend to keep the majority of the shares to guarantee our long-term commitment to the project and to the open source community,” adds Pinckaers.

According to the blogpost, this investment “has been made at an undisclosed, unicorn-sized company valuation”, making the company first IT unicorn out of Wallonia region of Belgium. According to TC, this investment values the startup at over €2B.

With this development, Han Sikkens, MD and Head of Europe at Summit Partners, will join Odoo’s board. Also, Odoo’s historic investors Sofinnova Partners and XAnge, who invested in the company in 2010 and 2015, respectively, will exit the board 

Antony Clavel, MD at Summit Partners who joined Odoo’s Board upon Summit’s initial investment in the company in December 2019, says, “Odoo has delivered sustained, strong and profitable growth over the course of the last several years, and this momentum has only accelerated in recent months. We are excited to continue our partnership with the Odoo team and believe the company is positioned to transform the landscape of business software.”

Open Source: A Key Competitive Advantage

According to Odoo, currently, on the market, you can find complete software (SAP, Netsuite, Dynamics), but they are too complex. You can also find simple software (Trello, Mailchimp, Xero, Shopify), but they only cover one need. This is where Odoo steps in. The company has created complete software that is simple and affordable.

Odoo’s mission is to simplify operations for small and medium-sized businesses by providing easy-to-use, low-cost software. Its SaaS solutions include accounting, inventory, manufacturing, project management, HR, marketing, and website builder, among others. The company has a large business app store with over 30,000 apps.

Founded in 2005 by Fabien Pinckaers, Odoo has 7 million users worldwide; 3850 partners with 90,000 Odoo related jobs created in 150 countries; 1700 employees globally; and forecasted billing of €160M in 2021. It has ten offices globally, 3 in Belgium, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, India, San Francisco, New York, Dubai, and Mexico.

Odoo claims to have reached considerable scale with limited external funding; prior to Summit’s initial investment in 2019, the company had raised just €10M in two rounds. According to the company, it has achieved a sustained average billing growth rate of more than 50 per cent per year over ten years.

Odoo Founder Fabien Pinckaers says, “This transaction is a signal – a signal that open source business models are not limited to technical products that serve only developers or system administrators. Over the course of the last 15 years, open-source software has been a catalyst for growth and change in the IT industry. Now, it has the maturity to transform business software too.”