Gartner recently praised Icertis for its ahead of the curve business apps and Microsoft integration but warned of implementation issues, leading it to drop slightly in this year’s Magic Quadrant leaderboard.
Icertis has secured $150 million in funding comprised of a revolving credit facility and the convertible financing from Silicon Valley Bank.
The company says that the funds will enable it to further extend its leadership position in the burgeoning CLM category by accelerating the application of transformational technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain.
“Customers across all verticals are using our AI-driven contract intelligence platform to digitally memorialize the purpose of every commercial relationship and ensure the intent of those agreements is fully realized. We continue to see strong momentum with our clear value proposition as we help customers become more agile, drive efficiencies, and respond to market challenges like inflation, sanctions, economic slowdown, and supply chain disruptions,” said Rajat Bahri, CFO of Icertis. “This new funding from Silicon Valley Bank is a major vote of confidence in our growth trajectory, enhancing our already strong capital position, and enabling us to lean in to capture market share and build towards the next exciting chapter in our company’s journey.”
In March this year, Icertis announced that in 2021 it added nearly twice as many customers as in 2020, and added more than a dozen new partners. New customers included AkzoNobel, EMAG Group, Pacsun, Persistent Systems, and Red Bull GmbH. These customers join the likes of Daimler, Microsoft, Porsche, and Sanofi.
However, in Gartner’s CLM Magic Quadrant published in October, Icertis has slightly dropped down the leader quadrant. While Gartner found that Icertis has demonstrated market responsiveness and adaptability by developing business apps that go beyond what a traditional CLM solution can do, and praised its strong Microsoft integration and partnership, Gartner cautioned: “Some of Icertis’ clients continue to report difficulties with implementation and upgrades, leading this to be listed as a caution for the second year running. While some challenges are to be expected considering the complexity of the problems the solution addresses, prospects are advised to closely review the assumptions made when scoping the implementation project to make sure the estimates are realistic.”
According to MGI Research, the category total addressable market for CLM will increase to $30 billion[1] in the next five years.
COMMENT: Let’s beware of this fast growing market becoming even more frothy – Gartner warned that legal teams need to understand what they are signing up for. That means CLM vendors ensuring that maximum care is taken in ensuring that legal teams know what they are signing up for and a focus on long term customers satisfaction above fast growth.