Plutora ‘stoked’ by Macquarie’s $18.5m funding round

The bosses of techn firm Plutora are “stoked” after landing a $US13.4m ($18.5m) funding round from Macquarie Bank.

Plutora co-chief executive Sean Hamawi.

The joint chief executives of Australian enterprise technology firm Plutora say they’re “stoked” after landing a $US13.4m ($18.5m) funding round from Macquarie Bank, a move that will add Macquarie executive Glen Butler to the board.

Plutora, which was founded in 2012 in Australia and now has offices in Mountain View, Sydney and London, said the investment would allow it to open a new European office and focus on acquiring customers.

“We had overwhelming interest from tier 1 investors in Silicon Valley as well as Macquarie Capital,” co-CEO Dailbor Siroky told The Australian. “Macquarie’s investment philosophy is strongly aligned with the efficient way we run Plutora.

“We see this round as a key enabler for acceleration in 2017. Seventy per cent of Plutora’s revenue now comes from North America and Europe.”

Plutora, which sells release, test environment and quality management solutions for enterprise IT, has had 200 per cent organic year-on-year growth since 2013. Its customers include eBay, Dell and Barclays.

“We’re stoked. We’re wrapping up the year closing the funding round, which took its toll on us, but we’re really happy to have Macquarie now on our board,” co-CEO Sean Hamawi said. “This funding is about us getting ahead of the curve. We’ve been going through such exponential growth, we needed to take some capital on board to actually hire well ahead of the curve, so we can grow sales and marketing and double down on our innovation.”

Mr Hamawi said his firm was well placed, given the need for quality management solutions is ubiquitous.

Terms of the funding were confidential, but Mr Hamawi said the economics of the deal meant Macquarie had first option to do the next investment round as well.

“Plutora has achieved significant growth in a short period of time due to its innovative and high-quality software solutions, and the entrepreneurial approach of its management team,” said Glen Butler at Macquarie Capital.