Tera Ventures and Livonia Partners participate in the $16.4 million Series B investment round to Scoro
Photo: Scoro founder Fred Krieger
Scoro, an award-winning work management software company, has closed a $16.4 million Series B round led by Kennet Partners. Additional investors included EstVCA members Tera Ventures and Livonia Partners as well as Columbia Lake Partners and Inventure.
Scoro joins an elite group of start-ups founded in Estonia that have raised >$20 million in venture capital. Estonia is the world leader in creating technology unicorns per capita, with successes including Skype, Transferwise, Bolt and Pipedrive. Work management software is a booming category due to the remote working patterns of creative and professional service businesses. These businesses rushed to stock up on communication and collaboration tools in 2020, but this influx created new distractions and disruption for teams.
“Even before Covid-19 hit, most professional service businesses were using as many as a dozen different platforms daily,” said Scoro’s Founder and CEO, Fred Krieger. “However, requiring teams to constantly switch between tools harms productivity, creates more distractions and results in lost data and duplicated work. We’re proud to help businesses identify and remove these weapons of mass distraction with the support of Kennet Partners and other investors.”
Scoro’s most recent product launch has been a radical overhaul of the Gantt chart, which had not evolved since its creation at the turn of the 19th Century. By centralizing information into a single, holistic and real-time view, Scoro’s Gantt chart solves the issue of project plans becoming inaccurate as soon as work begins, eliminates the risk of overbooking and empowers project managers to make proactive decisions.
“The dramatic disruption to working practices caused by Covid-19 should give us pause for thought, challenge our assumptions, and encourage us to think about what the new normal should be,” said Dave Kellogg, a highly experienced SaaS advisor and recent addition to Scoro’s Board of Directors. “The evolution of the workplace will be supported by platforms such as Scoro which enable staff to communicate and collaborate effectively, flexibly and without distraction.”
Kennet Partners’ Managing Director Hillel Zidel also joins the Board of Directors, alongside Dave Kellogg. Martin Fincham continues to lead the Board of Directors as Scoro’s Chairman. “It is a privilege to chair such a high calibre Board and very reassuring to be supported on our scale-up journey by some of Europe’s top B2B SaaS investors,” added Martin Fincham.
“Scoro is a great example of the type of high-growth, founder-led B2B SaaS company we love to invest in at Kennet,” said Hillel Zidel. “Clients get a lot of value out of Scoro and I’m very excited to support the company in its international expansion at a time when so many businesses are looking for productivity gains.”
Scoro is an award-winning work management software platform for collaborative teams in the professional services and creative industries. Founded in 2013 by Fred Krieger, Scoro is headquartered in London, with additional offices in Tallinn and New York. Scoro has been listed in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 list and the Inc. 5000 list. For more information, visit www.scoro.com.
Livonia Partners is the only pan-Baltic dedicated private equity investment fund, currently managing €83 million as part of the Livonia Partners Fund I and the Livonia Partners EIF Co-Investment Fund. Run by founders Kaido Veske, Kristīne Bērziņa, Rain Lõhmus, and Mindaugas Utkevičius, its investors are domestic and international financial institutions. Livonia was partly originated through the Baltic Innovation Fund (BIF), a common initiative of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the European Investment Fund. www.livoniapartners.com
Tera Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Tallinn, Estonia, and focused on exceptional founders from Estonia, Scandinavia and CEE disrupting digital space globally. Tera builds presence and networks in the markets where our portfolio companies want to expand to – the UK, the US, and Asia. With a presence in Estonia, Finland, and California, Tera Ventures is supported by a global advisory network and provides portfolio companies with access to expertise and hands-on support necessary to grow from seed stage to successful exit. www.tera.vc
Further info:
Styv Solovjov
Livonia Partners
styv.solovjov@livoniapartners.com
Stanislav Ivanov
Tera Ventures
stanislav@tera.vc