Ramp secures $5m Seed funding to enable frictionless forecasting for CFOs
News, by AlbionVC
Posted
Ramp – the forecasting analytics startup transforming how global finance teams plan for the future – is today announcing it has closed a $5 million seed round led by us at AlbionVC and Eurazeo. Triple Point Ventures participated in the round, alongside high-profile angel investors including Barnaby Hussey-Yeo CEO at Cleo, and Stephane Kurgan, Ex COO at King.com, among others.
Ramp was created after co-founder Angus Lovitt (ex-VP King Digital entertainment) realised the majority of quarterly target “misses” were not due to company performance but the quality of the forecast itself. In other words, factors that could have been predicted at the time.
The root cause of such poor revenue forecasting is that in 99% of businesses, the financial modelling still takes place on spreadsheets which are no longer fit for purpose. They’re inaccurate, time-consuming and too open to ‘subjective’ interference from different areas of the business with their own agendas.
With Ramp, finance teams take the guesswork out of forecasting. They run scenarios and forecast in minutes – versus weeks or months – and predict customer behaviour, future revenue and the annual growth of a firm at the press of a button. No more costly consequences of incorrect resource allocation, wasted marketing spend, underinvesting, and missed targets.
Customers control the inputs, and determine the reporting metrics to suit their business, and the Ramp model does all the work. What’s so powerful about Ramp’s model, and the success it’s seen to date, is that companies can directly compare the forecast with reality and see just how accurate it is. The forecast is then positioned alongside data-driven, intelligent insights backed by the Ramp team’s legacy in the business.
Co-founder Lovitt played a vital role in his position at King Digital Entertainment in scaling the world-renowned Candy Crush game. Fellow founder Daniel Marcus previously built Magnetic Software with Ramp’s other co-founder and COO Jan Pickard. That business was subsequently acquired by Silversoft in 2018.
Cohort-based forecasting
To achieve such unmatched speed and accuracy, Ramp’s forecasting platform has unlocked the power of cohort-based forecasting. A technique used to extrapolate the behaviour of different groups of customers for a product or service, from the moment they sign up.
Cohort-based forecasting is a concept well understood within B2C but one which is notoriously difficult to implement properly and at scale. This is because the deeper companies go, the more layers there are and this has historically been very difficult to do. Ramp uses multiple dynamically selected statistical models for different cohorts in any forecast. It uses an opinionated view of modelling the interactions between the different levers of a business and with additional models to optimise inputs such as seasonality and live ops.
“Our platform dramatically increases the accuracy of revenue forecasting in a fraction of time it would take in spreadsheets,” says Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder Angus Lovitt. “What took us all a day in terms of number crunching we can now do in minutes. Yet what really excites me about the platform are the strategic decisions we empower businesses to make. Our platform has given some businesses the confidence to invest in growth through marketing, while others the evidence to cutting costs or shuddering services. The insight we deliver can be game-changing.”
Building on momentum
Since inception, Ramp has acquired a reputable portfolio of gaming clients. It recently welcomed Space Ape Games, the award-winning gaming company revolutionising mobile entertainment; FRVR; Pixel United and Netspeak Games. The company will use the funds to support streamlining the onboarding to allow for scale.
Dan Marcus, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Ramp said: “Our long term goal is to position Ramp as a single source of truth for the future of businesses, from which prescriptive and proactive analytics services can stem. We’re at the forefront of this new product category and it’s great to have such renowned investors believe in this vision and join us on this journey.”
“We are very excited to support Ramp in this next phase of growth by co-leading their seed round,” said Paul Lehair, Investment Director at AlbionVC. “As an ex-CFO of a B2C startup, I was blown away by Ramp’s unique approach to solving the business-critical problem that is forecasting. We are thrilled to back the team and their ambition to create a new category leader in this space.”
“As a former product manager, I was impressed by Ramp’s innovative solution for forecasting, which is a crucial aspect for any business,” said Tara Reeves, Managing Director at Eurazeo Ventures. “I believe its product will be of great value for teams in product, finance, and marketing, and we are excited to support the team in its mission to become a leader in this field.”
Space Ape Games CFO Hong Nguyen said: “We immediately saw the benefit of receiving sophisticated forecasts in minutes so we are deploying Ramp on new and existing titles.”
Chris Benjaminsen, Co-Founder and Director of Channels at FRVR added: “Insights from Ramp gave us the confidence to significantly scale our UA budgets.”
EU-Startups has more here.