Satisfied Customers Inspire FloQast Investors

Accounting software developer FloQast Inc. received $25 million in a second funding round. The money will be used to beef up sales, marketing and customer support and for international expansion. Insight Venture Partners in New York led the investment round for the Sherman Oaks startup. It was joined by current FloQast investors Toba Capital in San Francisco and Polaris Partners in Boston. The new funding brings FloQast’s total capital raised to date to $33 million. Harley Miller, vice president of Insight, will join FloQast’s board. Chief Executive Mike Whitmire said the additional money will allow expansion overseas, starting with an office in London. England was targeted as the first foreign location because of no cultural or language barriers and the buyer persona is similar to that found in the U.S. “If London goes well we’d start to look into other countries to expand into from there,” Whitmire said. Founded in 2013, FloQast offers a software application that allows finance professionals to collaborate, organize documents and automate some tasks, such as closing out financial books and reconciling accounts to make sure the amount of money coming in matches the money spent. A big part of why FloQast has been able to raise money is due to high customer satisfaction ratings. For the current funding round the investors did a Net Promoter Score, an internal industry benchmark based on customer loyalty that asked customers if they would recommend a company’s product or service to others. More than two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies have adopted the measurement. FloQast earned a score of 76, which Whitmire said was considerably higher than the average scores of 20 to 40. Apple Inc., by comparison, has a score of 60, he added. “Not many investors see an enterprise company with that high level of customer satisfaction,” Whitmire said. FloQast, too, has been aggressive with its hiring with a total headcount of 70 employees. About 50 workers are in the Valley, another dozen at a sales office near Columbus, Ohio that opened early this year, and several employees working remotely. The Sherman Oaks office with about 6,000 square feet of space is under some constraints which is why the company will move later this year to a 20,000-square-foot building in Van Nuys. “We found this cool old warehouse that the landlord is converting over to creative lofts. We actually get the whole building over there,” Whitmire said. Glendale’s Tech Week The city of Glendale is gearing up for its second Tech Week taking place Oct. 9 to 13 at multiple venues downtown. An outgrowth of a technology strategy adopted by the Glendale City Council in January, Tech Week features speakers and panels, a pitch fest where startups compete for a $20,000 prize package, a hackathon for students, receptions and other events. Jennifer McClain, principal economic development officer, said last year’s inaugural week drew about 1,000 people and started conversations between the city and tech companies about what more could be done to create a tech community. “It is always a scary thing to have government knocking on businesses’ doors saying, ‘We want to help,’” McClain said. “For us the activities during Tech Week helped break down those barriers and forged some of those relationships.” Changes for this year include bringing in an event management company, Innovate Marketing, in Pasadena, and the Valley Economic Alliance hosting a hackathon on Oct. 13. Alex Theatre, Americana at Brand, the downtown Glendale library and commercial real estate firm CBRE Group Inc. are providing space for a variety of events on Oct. 11 and 12. These events include exhibitor displays, panels on innovations in health care, women in tech, cybersecurity and other topics, virtual reality and robotics demonstrations and opportunities to meet potential investors. Speakers include representatives from Expert Dojo, a small business accelerator from Santa Monica; Stripe, a payment processing firm from San Francisco; Fair.com, an automotive financial technology company in Los Angeles; and Spokeo, an information-gathering website in Pasadena. Local companies participating include Age of Learning Inc., an education company that has developed the digital learning product ABCMouse.com; and ServiceTitan Inc., a developer of management software for home service companies. “Between the two of them, they are the largest startups that we have seen in the city,” McClain said. “Age of Learning now has 590 employees, and Service Titan is another up-and-coming company.” The city is also seeking tech companies that may want to host a pop up event. For example, on Oct. 9 the DJ school Beat Junkie Institute of Sound is having a reception at its location at 5130 San Fernando Road. “If local companies want to host a fieldtrip or site visit to their location, we are encouraging that,” McClain said. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or [email protected].