- Frontify, a startup that helps companies organize their digital assets, raised $50 million in Series C led by Revaia.
- CEO Roger Dudler raised the money by getting investors to pitch themselves.
- With VC funding at an all-time high, startups can be choosy about their financing options.
Frontify, a Swiss-based tech startup that stores brands' digital assets, raised $50 million in a Series C round led by Revaia, formerly Gaia Capital Partners, by turning the tables on investors.
At a time when VCs are awash in funding and scrambling to invest it all, startups can be choosy about their funding options. Frontify got VCs to pitch themselves in what CEO Roger Dudler calls "grilling the VCs."
Elina Berrebi, founding partner at Paris-based Revaia, and her team were invited to the company's Swiss headquarters earlier this year, where they got 45 minutes to pitch. Revaia's pitch compared Frontify to larger rivals like Canva and Hubspot, saying, "I see a path for Frontify where it goes into the big leagues in the next few years."
Below are slides from Revaia's presentation.
Then Frontify's 200-plus employees got a chance to ask the firm about its business and interest in their company.
Dudler said he started taking this approach during Frontify's Series B round to get VC firms to prove themselves and has rejected potential investors this way.
"From an investor perspective, it creates a sort of virtual contract," he said. "It's obviously not something binding, but it's a deeper connection than money."
Berrebi said companies her firm invests in often ask probing questions after doing deals with Revaia, but that she expects more startup founders to begin doing so earlier in the process.
"The power has shifted, and it's in the hands of founders who have multiple options to be financed," she said.
Dudler's approach has also led to awkward exchanges. In the Series B round, one employee asked a VC if they could help Frontify expand in the US, in the process sharing confidential information that a rival VC firm had promised to do so.
Frontify's cloud software acts like an Amazon Web Services for brands, helping clients including Facebook, Nationwide, and PepsiCo store digital assets like logos, fonts, and brand guidelines in one place so they're accessible to marketers, PR teams, and agencies.
Dudler said he plans to use the funds to grow Frontify's new US operations while hiring more engineers and marketers. He also plans to expand services such as the ability to organize a brand's assets by target market.
Other participating VC firms included High Sage Ventures, EQT Ventures, Tenderloin Ventures, and Blossom Capital. The company has raised more than $80 million to date.
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