Odoo: Enterprise software firm boosts valuation to $5.3 billion

Odoo, a startup that offers enterprise software increased its valuation to $5.3 billion during a secondary share round led by Sequoia Capital and Alphabet’s venture fund. The company is based in Belgium.

Its platform has over 80 applications that give businesses tools for human resources, accounting, e-commerce, and website development. Odoo’s CEO and co-founder, Fabien Pinckaers, stated that his company is “cash profitable” and is increasing its revenue at 50% annually, negating the need to raise any primary capital.

Pinckaers established the company’s first office on a Belgian farm. Odoo established two more offices in Belgium where its technical, support, and research and development teams were housed. Pinckaers and his family currently reside in India. He resided there for a year and worked to increase the company’s visibility thereby hiring more staff, stepping up marketing efforts, and expanding Odoo’s network of partners

, Odoo is expected to surpass 650 million in 2025 with 370 million euros in billings last year.  The company hopes to surpass the 1 billion euro billings milestone in three years. The preferred metric used by Odoo to monitor annual revenue performance is billings, which is the total of all invoices for a specific year.

Not Ready For IPO

Pinckaers stated that he is not in a rush to go public, even though Odoo is now at the size of a business prepared for an IPO. Odoo’s decision to remain private has allowed it to maintain its long-term investment focus. Private investors in Odoo are also not eager for the company to go public

Partner Alex Nichols of Alphabet’s CapitalG told CNBC that he isn’t concerned about “IPO timing,” noting that things like the state of the public market are ultimately “out of our control.”. Pinckaers largely used bootstrapping or expanding without obtaining outside funding, to grow the company to its current size.

Odoo has avoided the need to raise primary capital from investors in the last decade by allowing its employees and early investors to sell shares in secondary sales. Odoo last obtained primary funding in a Series B round in 2014, raising $10 million. Investors most recently valued Odoo at 3.2 billion euros before the most recent secondary round.