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Venture Capital News: Sapho Completes $9.5M Series A Round

2016-06-16
SAN BRUNO, CA, Sapho, a platform that helps organizations 'transform existing business systems into secure micro apps,' has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by Alsop Louie Partners.
Today, Sapho officially unveiled the Sapho Micro App Platform, which allows organizations to transform existing business systems into secure micro apps that connect people with important data and critical workflows. Dozens of organizations are already using Sapho's Micro App Platform, including CBS Interactive, Kubernetes, RPX Corporation and Turner.

'We have multiple teams who all work in different silos, which means information is spread across hundreds of systems,' said Wolfgang Hammer, CEO of Super Deluxe, a Turner Broadcasting Company. 'This information sprawl makes it difficult to keep teams on top of critical production timelines. We used tracking apps and software, but they were clunky, slow, and often left out key data. By adopting Sapho, we were able to quickly unify data across all of our systems and deliver actionable updates to our team via simple, single-purpose apps. Now we have a complete 360 view of every project from production schedule to finance to marketing execution. The technology has made such a difference that we are already evaluating how we can use it across other parts of the Turner family.'

Consumer apps like Facebook and Google have shifted the traditional pull computing paradigm that required users to purposefully seek out information to a new push computing era that brings together custom feeds, actionable push notifications, and real-time information to deliver value to a user before they know they need something. Enterprise software, including SaaS applications, hasn't kept up as today's workflows require an employee to fish for disparate data spread across an ever-increasing collection of systems. This has become even more pronounced as we move into the mobile era where users demand simplicity.

Sapho changes this process with simple, single-purpose micro apps that monitor for changes and events across SaaS applications, on-premises systems, databases, and data warehouses, and then delivers personalized information, actionable push notifications, and one-click tasks to employees on their mobile device, web browser, or messaging client such as Slack.

'I've seen first-hand how difficult it can be to get employees to use enterprise software as most of it is simply unusable,' said Fouad ElNaggar, CEO and co-founder of Sapho. 'Companies have spent trillions of dollars on enterprise software over the last few decades, yet employees are still plagued with feature-bloated apps and siloed systems that leave data fragmented or inaccessible. Push computing is the future of enterprise software, which is why we introduced the Sapho Micro App Platform, so enterprises can adapt to this reality and keep their employees informed, engaged, and productive.'

Sapho completed its $9.5 million Series A round, led by Alsop Louie Partners, to expand its sales and marketing team while continuing to scale its technology and meet increasing customer demand.

'We invested in Sapho because the company can truly change how work is done,' said Bill Coleman, CEO of Veritas and former Partner at Alsop Louie Partners. 'By combining smart machines, bots, workflows, and micro apps to fundamentally change how people accomplish tasks and get information, we believe Sapho represents a massive leap forward in enterprise software.'

The future of work. Delivered today.

The Sapho Micro App Platform allows organizations to build micro apps that are based on existing systems, monitor for important changes and events, and then surface actionable information through simple one-click tasks and custom feeds to each employee. Sapho's platform introduces features including:

-Rapid micro app development -- IT professionals, business analysts, and process experts can leverage Sapho's pre-built micro app templates or create new micro apps in minutes with a simple to use, drag-and-drop micro app builder. Micro apps are instantly delivered to employees on any device through a downloadable app, a web browser, or a messaging client.

-Out of the box integration -- To reduce development time, Sapho includes pre-built, customizable connectors to systems of record, such as SaaS apps, databases, data warehouses, and internal web services. These connectors are designed to extract, transform, and prepare data for employee notification (ETN).

-Event-based notifications -- Once integrated, Sapho sits across these systems of record and monitors for system events - changes that occurred or should have occurred. Based on micro app rules, Sapho determines which events are important and notifies the right employees at the right time.

-Custom workflows -- The Sapho connectors also integrate data from the systems of record. This allows IT to build micro apps for both simple one-click tasks to complex workflows that involves multiple systems and multiple constituencies for completion. These micro apps push information to employees' devices, allowing them to complete a task from their feed or secure micro app, without any secondary system logins.

-Secure and flexible deployment -- Sapho's Micro App Platform runs on existing infrastructure, either in your data center or in your virtual private cloud, and integrates with existing identity and access control solutions to maintain security.

About Sapho

Sapho has created the industry's first micro app solution to ensure important information is always available. The Sapho Micro App Platform enables organizations to rapidly build and deliver secure micro apps that tie into existing business systems and track changes to key business data. The result is a set of secure, single purpose apps that notify employees of important information along with relevant actions that employees can complete in a single click. Customers such as CBS, Kubernetes, RPX Corporation, and Turner use Sapho to build consumer-like micro apps that improve their internal workflows and increase employee joy and productivity. Sapho was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in San Bruno, CA. For more information, visit www.sapho.com.
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