Kiwi workflow automation startup Flowingly raises NZ$4.5 million pre-Series A

New Zealand startup Flowingly has raised NZ$4.5 million (A$4.2m) in pre-Series A capital.

The round was led by local VC GD1 (Global from Day 1), with participation from Icehouse Ventures.

The fresh cash will be used for ongoing international expansion, with a core focus on the US.

Serial SaaS entrepreneur Jon Kalaugher founded Flowingly in 2016, after his previous two successful exits and has been bootstrapped his latest venture so far.

Flowingly allows client-facing employees without coding or IT experience to easily map, customise and automate simple to complex workflow processes and integrate with other business tools.

Kalaugher’s target market is mid-tier businesses with 100-3,000 employees, which be believes have been overlooked by digital transformation tool vendors focused on larger enterprises and IT-specific use cases.

“Those low-code platforms are often big, clunky legacy solutions or piecemeal tools that provide value to specific teams within a larger organisation,” he said.

“The few tools that have been developed for the mid-market are technically complex and solely owned by IT and often impede agile process automation efforts.”

His no-code platform allows anyone to automate their workflows and process maps in as little as 30 minutes, without relying on IT to set up and maintain them. Flowingly’s addressable market is forecast to grow to around $80 billion by 2027.

An example of the Flowingly dashboard

“We are building a new category, company-wide workflow automation. The days of businesses automation efforts being hamstrung by traditional IT owned workflow tools are over,” Kalaugher said.

“Flowingly truly democratises workflow automation and is proving to be a game-changer for our clients.

“Now, customer-facing, frontline workers can carry out their usual activities and integrate with all the other line-of business systems and tools they already use. The result: businesses deliver amazing employee and customer experiences in record time without requiring a huge team of IT experts to power and support them.”

As CEO, he’s already built a customer base in New Zealand, Australia, Europe and the US and says the company is on track to more than triple its revenue in 2022, amid plans to double the headcount as part of the US expansion plans.

“Our mission is to help businesses around the world transform old, manual ways of working into modern digital experiences,” he said.

“While process mapping and workflow automation may not be a new concept to large enterprises who have invested in technologies that help improve process flow across their massive organisations, mid-market businesses have significantly lagged their transition into digital transformation.

“We want to empower all parts and functions of a mid-market business to join the no-code movement so they can better delight their customers and team members.”

GD1 co-managing partner John Kells said they were impressed by Kalaugher’s background and leadership experience.

“Not only as an entrepreneur but also in governance, having previously held board positions with Cin7 and AskNicely,” he said.

“Through Naverisk [his previous startup], Jon clearly understands customer challenges around inefficient repetitive workflows and has done an incredible job building and scaling Flowingly as an institutional quality platform without taking external investment.

“There are very few truly no-code platforms, but Jon and his team have a clear and relentless obsession with customer experience excellence, which is demonstrated by early product/market fit underpinned by a global footprint of top tier customers.”