Private Equity Firms Continue To Bet On Growth Of Partner Ecosystem Management Solutions

Private equity firms continue to make significant investments ecosystem management solutions providers. Early this month, Channext, a Software-as-a-Service platform that supports online connections between vendors and business partners, announced that it has raised €4.5M ($4.42M) in a Series A round of funding led by Holland Capital, who invested together with the Graduate Entrepreneur Fund and current investors.

WorkSpan, a San Bernardino, CA-based provider of a co-sell management network, reported that it raised $30M in Series C funding in a round led by Insight Partners with participation from Mayfield and M12.

In August, CMR reported that Zift Solutions, a provider of partner relationship management (PRM) and through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) software, raised $16.5 million growth funding investment from AshGrove Capital.

These most recent investment follows significant bets on the performance of channel ecosystems solution companies. As Jay McBain, Chief Analyst – Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems at Canalys, noted in the research firm’s Channels Ecosystem Landscape report, the companies it listed raised over $3 billion in private equity funding last year in 2021.

Founded in 2018 by Rick van den Bosch, Channext offers a platform that automates the process of launching marketing campaigns to reseller websites, social media profiles, and online advertising accounts. The solution retrieves the data of reseller marketing channels to create a dashboard that provides insight into important channel sales and marketing KPIs such as total reach, interaction with end customers, and generated leads.

Led by CEO Mayank Bawa, WorkSpan is a co-sell management network that empowers companies to charge and scale their co-sell revenue growth. Partnership and sales teams can use its SaaS solution to collaborate with partners on deals, exchange co-sell referrals from inside their CRM, manage shared pipelines, and track performance on a live dashboard.

Through its ZiftONE software, Zift Solutions provides a comprehensive, modern platform that aligns channel marketing, channel sales, and channel operations. Based on nearly two decades of experience, ZiftONE’s all-in-one PRM and TCMA capabilities enable the management of marketing and lead generation all the way through to sales, giving companies a consistent view of their entire funnel and the tools to drive channel revenue and success.

In an email to CMR, McBain commented that raising funds in 2022 is different than last year due to the challenging macroeconomic conditions. Nonetheless, “Investors are betting on the decade of the ecosystem and see considerable value in leaders on the landscape.”

• Ecosystem Management