Montréal-headquartered SaaS startup Inossem has raised $3.5 million in what it classifies as a pre-Series A round. The investment, which was all equity and all primary capital, came from Québec private equity firm Aisca Group.
The $3.5 million represents Inossem’s first institutional capital raise. Managing director Bing Wu told BetaKit that Inossem plans to raise a $10 million Series A round sometime this year.
“Organizations will require more IT and business process automation as they are forced to accelerate digital transformation plans in a post-pandemic, digital-first world.”
– Fabrizio Biscotti
Founded in 2015, Inossem provides business automation solutions, targeting mid-sized markets and medium-sized Canadian businesses. The company is currently working with Université de Montréal’s Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO) to bolster its artificial intelligence-driven offerings.
With Inossem’s client base mostly made up of Canadian firms, this includes SaaS provider Softchoice, and battery-powered outdoor equipment company Greenworks.
In addition to its head office and research and development (R&D) team anchored in Montréal, Inossem also has a global delivery network with branches set up in Toronto, Ottawa, Boston, Austin, and San Francisco.
Wu said that Inossem’s founding executive team is made up of management consultants with a combined 20 years of experience working with IBM, Accenture, PwC, and other large firms.
Since launching, Wu added that Inossem has established a strong presence in Québec. With the support of the new $3.5 million funds, the company intends to further expand in Ontario and the United States east coast.
Over the last four years, Inossem claims that its headcount in North America has grown tenfold, reaching 100 employees in January this year. Wu said the recent investment will also help the company hire more AI and robotic process automation (RPA) engineers.
RELATED: Report: 61 percent of Canadian companies use automation to run their business
Inossem is part of a growing number of technology providers looking to accelerate the adoption of business automation in Canada and beyond. In a forecast by management consulting company Gartner, it found that the worldwide hyper automation-enabling software market is expected to reach $600 billion by 2022.
“Organizations will require more IT and business process automation as they are forced to accelerate digital transformation plans in a post-pandemic, digital-first world,” said Fabrizio Biscotti, research VP at Gartner.
With the prevalent trend in businesses leveraging automation tools, some reports indicate that the adoption rates are steadily climbing.
Intuit Canada released a report with Emergent Research in 2017 that found 61 percent of small businesses are using automation technology to run their businesses. In 2020, McKinsey and Co. conducted a survey which reported that 66 percent of businesses have piloted the automation of business processes in one or more business functions.
Other Canadian startups that want to equip firms with automation systems include Waterloo-based OpenText, a provider of enterprise information management systems.
In 2017, OpenText launched an AI platform that uses open-source machine learning with advanced analytics to help business analysts acquire, merge, manage, and analyze big data and big content. Last year, OpenText acquired Texas-headquartered Zix in a deal worth $860 million.
Featured image courtesy of Inossem.
