Leigh Jasper, who sold his previous technology company Aconex to US software giant Oracle for $1.6 billion in 2017, is back on the tools, forming a new start-up called Firmable, which has already attracted $9 million from well-known investors, keen to see if lightning can strike twice.
The funding round is larger than one typically associated with a start-up of Firmable’s vintage, showing investors’ willingness to chip in for proven founders and the value of a strong network.
Firmable co-founders and co-CEOs (from left) Paul Perrett and Leigh Jasper, with Tara Salmon, its chief marketing officer, and chief product and technology officer Karthik Venkatasubramanian. Eamon Gallagher
Since his windfall from the Oracle buyout, Mr Jasper has remained a prominent figure in the Australian tech start-up scene as an investor. He is a founding partner at SecondQuarter Ventures, which invests in start-up secondary shares, and has also made investments in a number of start-ups in a personal capacity.
The round was led by AirTree Ventures, but also included investment from the company’s founders and a raft of previous Aconex investors and entrepreneurs. Aconex co-founder Rob Phillpot is a backer, as are Redbubble co-founder and CEO Martin Hosking, Adam Lewis, Andrew Sypkes and A Cloud Guru co-founder Sam Kroonenburg.
Firmable has two other co-founders: Paul Perrett, who is co-CEO with Mr Jasper, and chief technology officer Karthik Venkatasubramanian. All three men were previously colleagues at Aconex.
“Building a business is a team sport, and it’s great to work with great people, so that’s probably the first consideration,” Mr Jasper said when asked about his decision to step back into the tumult of running a start-up when he could just put his feet up and relax if he wanted to.
“But also, we were never really looking to sell Aconex, but we were a public company, and had an offer from Oracle that we couldn’t say no to.
“I just love building businesses, and I want to be at the frontline of tech.”
Oracle paid a 47 per cent premium on Aconex shares at the time of its acquisition.
Mr Perrett has had notable experience since his time at Aconex, which would have appealed to investors. He was chief executive at SMS marketing technology company MessageMedia, steering it to a $1.7 billion acquisition by Swedish tech firm Sinch in 2021.
Firmable is pitching itself as Australia’s definitive source of business and market intelligence for business-to-business organisations. Mr Perrett compares it to ZoomInfo as a provider of company information to assist sales and marketing staff, but said it had much more granular detail and information about much smaller companies than was currently available.
The company employs 25 people, half of them in Australia and the rest in India. It is just launching its beta product, and has passed the important start-up milestone of signing up its first paying customers.
“The stupid goal for the year would be to say that we want every sales person and marketer in Australia using our app,” Mr Jasper said.
“But if we can get 5 to 10 per cent of that market in a year, that would be a great start.”
Mr Perrett said conversations with investors while raising capital had largely revolved around identifying who to sell to, and the market potential. He said the Australian marketplace was a natural place to start, but was not the limit of Firmable’s ambitions.
“We have strong conviction about the power of local data to really transform sales and marketing processes, and we will be proving that out in Australia over the next 12 months,” he said. “Then we will start thinking about how we replicate that in other markets overseas.”
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