Novel announces a $15M oversubscribed Pre-Series A round, co-led by IGNIA Partners and Ulu Ventures, to propel the fintech’s expansion of their groundbreaking Capital Intelligence™ platform. The round also includes participation from MatterScale, Gaingels, as well as previous investors. This injection of capital catapults Novel’s total funding to over $130M, fueling its mission to transform how tech founders fund and grow their business.
By harnessing AI, real-time data, and their innovative capital-as-a-service model, the Novel platform equips founders with non-dilutive capital and essential tools for optimizing their capital stack. By making more strategic fundraising decisions, Founders are enabled to scale faster and exit better.
The recent downturn in VC activity and the demise of SVB have caused an acute need amongst growth-oriented tech companies to re-evaluate their capital stack decisions. Novel meets the needs of entrepreneurs with data and insights to support their capital strategy decisions, paired with alternative financing options that give them quick and transparent access to capital.
“The tech founder’s journey is often fueled by passion but also filled with obstacles. Grounded in our own entrepreneurial experiences with fundraising and making capital strategy decisions, Novel’s mission goes deeper than funding—it’s about leveraging technology to guide and support entrepreneurs,” says CEO and Co-Founder Carlos Antequera. “Our Capital Intelligence™ platform and data-driven approach democratizes access to growth capital and strategic tools, ensuring every tech founder has a greater chance to turn their vision into reality.”
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Central to Novel’s offering is their standout Capital-as-a-Service model, a subscription-based capital solution that places control firmly in the hands of founders by eliminating costly transaction, draw, and pre-payment fees, as well as warrants.
“With Novel, you really get the sense that you’re working with fellow entrepreneurs and innovators,” said CFO of Vital Data Technology, Adam Little. “They go deeper than just the numbers to better understand the company, its trajectory, and its market. Novel is taking a new approach to growth and risk assessment that is highly valuable to SaaS companies.”
Using their proprietary, data-driven scoring model, Novel can quickly assess how much non-dilutive growth capital to provide to a tech company by leveraging their key metrics in real-time, ensuring an accurate estimate that maximizes capital availability, while allowing the company to thrive during repayment.
To date, Novel has worked with over 350+ SaaS companies and provided over $100M in non-dilutive funding. Customers also leverage their Capital Intelligence™ platform, including their real-time CEO Dashboard, giving Founders a bird’s eye view of their most important metrics; and their Valuation Tool, which allows founders to determine their company’s current worth and benchmark it against thousands of other software companies. The latest offering, VentureMatch™, is a data-driven matchmaking service that directly connects Founders with over 100 world-class partner VC firms for access to equity financing.
“Ulu is excited to continue our support of the Novel team as they drive sustainable growth in a large and growing market,” says Steve Reale, Partner and CFO at Ulu Ventures. “Novel has developed a strong product suite that truly address the needs of the SaaS ecosystem.”
Thanks to their innovative business model, Novel’s revenue has grown 120%+ YoY as of Q1’24. They project doubling their growth in the coming year and reaching profitability within the next 18 months – something more and more VCs appreciate in their investments since 2021.
“Having experienced the venture capital world, I’ve learned the crucial role of supportive capital in entrepreneurial success,” said COO and Co-Founder, Keith Harrington. “At Novel, our platform not only scales to support thousands of entrepreneurs but also integrates seamlessly into the capital ecosystem. Our goal is not to overshadow traditional funding routes but to enhance them, ensuring that every tech founder has the tools and capital to succeed.”
Christine Kenna, Partner at IGNIA said, “As entrepreneurs themselves, they deeply and uniquely understand the capital challenges of launching, operating, and scaling businesses. With Novel’s customer-centric approach, countless startups will thrive, gaining vital access to essential strategy tools. We have the utmost confidence in their ability to transform the funding landscape for entrepreneurs, and we couldn’t be more excited for what the future holds.”
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