Plex Systems Raises $30 Million Strategic Investment
AUBURN HILLS -- Plex Systems, the leader in cloud-based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software for manufacturers, announced that the Palo Alto, Calif. venture capital firm Accel Partners has made a $30 million strategic investment in the company.
As part of the financing, Accel Partners will gain a seat on its board of directors, joining Francisco Partners, which acquired Plex Systems earlier this year.
The investment by Accel Partners will further support the company's rapidly advancing "shop floor to top floor" cloud technology for ERP, manufacturing execution, quality management, supply chain management, and business intelligence.
"Plex Systems was early in bringing the cloud to manufacturing ERP, and it now has the most advanced offering in the industry, which has brought them a large and loyal customer base and resulted in a high growth business with significant upside," said Sameer Gandhi, a partner with Accel Partners and newly appointed Plex Systems board member. "Accel's investment philosophy is to invest in companies that have the greatest potential for success due to their market position, disruptive technology and prospects for future growth. Plex Systems represents an opportunity to help move a highly complex and diverse industry -- manufacturing -- to the next computing platform, based in the cloud. We believe the manufacturing ERP market represents at least a $5 billion opportunity, and that less than 10 percent of the market has transitioned to SaaS so far."
Added Petri Oksanen, a principal with Francisco Partners: "Plex Systems is already a 'category killer' in cloud ERP for manufacturing. There are few opportunities to build a truly disruptive platform in the ERP market, and we believe Plex Systems is one of them. Accel is an ideal strategic partner to bring to the table given their strong track record in scaling high-growth companies."
And Plex president and CEO Mark Symonds said, "In addition to validating our strategy, direction and technology, Accel and Francisco Partners bring access to additional talent, connections and other relationships that will enable Plex Systems to continue to scale quickly to meet customer demand. As our products evolve and market adoption accelerates, Plex Systems will be able to further invest in R&D to bring even greater functionality to our products in order to continue to delight our customers."
Plex serves hundreds of customers across a wide range of industries including aerospace, automotive, electronics, general industrial and manufacturing, and food and beverage.
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has helped entrepreneurs build more than 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including AdMob, Atlassian, Cloudera, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Fusion-IO, Groupon, Kayak, Macromedia, Spotify, Veritas, Walmart.com and Zimbra.
For further information, please visit: www.accel.com.
Plex Online offers features for virtually every department within a manufacturer, including manufacturing execution systems and quality management systems for the shop floor, supply chain management for procurement, enterprise resource planning for finance and management, and business intelligence for executive management.
More at www.plex.com.
