‘There is way more demand than supply in this industry. … Customers need help yesterday. They’re behind on their digital transformation plans,’ says Zennify CEO Manvir Sandhu.
Salesforce consulting firm Zennify Thursday unveiled a $7.5 million round of funding it said will enable it to expand its reach in the financial services market.
Zennify, founded in 2013, focuses on financial services thanks to strategic partnerships with DocuSign, banking software vendor nCino and especially Salesforce, said Manvir Sandhu, CEO of the Sacramento, Calif.-based solution provider.
“Salesforce is our biggest partner by far,” Sandhu told CRN. “We’ve centered our approach and our technology stack around Salesforce. And nCino is built on the Salesforce platform.”
Until this new $7.5 million funding round from Tercera, a Boston-based venture capital investment firm that launched early this year, Zennify had pretty much grown on its own outside of a $2.5 million seed round from Salesforce Ventures, Sandhu said.
“That original funding helped us build our financial services practices and grow our national footprint,” he said. “More recently, we wanted to find a strategic investor and chose Tercera. Tercera’s value proposition and team was something we could align with. And strategic advice is important as funding.”
The new funding comes at a time of intense growth for Zennify. Sandhu said the company’s head count currently is 200, up from 130 people last year. Revenue for 2021 is 50 percent higher than it was for 2020, and 2020 revenue grew 30 percent over that of 2019.
To meet that growth, Zennify is continuing its hiring spree, Sandhu said.
“We’re looking for tech professionals who are proficient with cloud and Salesforce and who can work with clients from a consulting, solutions and product management perspective,” he said. “There’s a talent war going on in our industry. Having a strong partner is important in finding the right talent as we expand our capabilities and geographical reach.”
Zennify has healthy gross margins but has been focused more on growth and less on profitability, Sandhu said.
“We’re looking to extend our growth and take advantage of opportunities, so profit is not a primary goal for us,” he said. “There is way more demand than supply in this industry. Salesforce and our clients can’t keep up with demand. So that’s a significant opportunity for us. The winners will be those who can take advantage of that opportunity. Customers need help yesterday. They’re behind on their digital transformation plans.”
The Salesforce channel community has seen a lot of investment and several acquisitions in the past couple of years.
Brillio, a digital-native technology solution provider, in November expanded its Salesforce-focused business practice with the acquisition of fellow solution provider Standav.
IT solution provider Computer Design & Integration in August acquired fellow solution provider Candoris as a way to double down on customers’ increasing digital transformation requirements by bringing Salesforce and ServiceNow expertise into a single organization.
Other acquisitions included private equity-backed Argano in August making its sixth acquisition in about a year, buying up Alamo, Calif.-based Salesforce partner aMind Solutions.
IBM in May deepened its expertise across the Salesforce platform in Europe with the acquisition of Salesforce consulting partner star Waeg.
ndia-based global solution provider and IT consultant Infosys in February 2020 made a big Salesforce channel play with its $250 million acquisition of Salt Lake City-based Salesforce Platinum partner Simplus.
And distributor ScanSource in 2018 acquired Canpango, a consultant with a strong Salesforce practice, to help its channel partners with consulting and implementation of Salesforce for their customers.
The intense interest in the Salesforce channel community is no mystery, Sandhu said.
“Salesforce has an ecosystem of solutions tailored to the financial industry all the way down to the bank or mortgage company level,” he said. “The need to grow this business is attractive to investors.”
