Algolia and Bubble have many points in common. Founded or co-founded in 2012 by French people, the two start-ups are located in the United States and operate in the software sector. They both announced, Wednesday, July 28, significant fundraising: $ 150 million (127 million euros) for the first, $ 100 million for the second.
Of the two, Algolia is the more mature. Originally specializing in the creation of search engines for websites or mobile applications, it has already raised several funds ($ 53 million in 2017, $ 110 million in October 2019) and is now valued 2.7 billions of dollars. Over the years, it has enriched its product line, notably with prediction and recommendation tools. Julien Lemoine, co-founder of the company, describes “the new vision” of the young shoot as follows: “To enable our customers to provide the best user experience, and to be able to personalize it to stand out from their competitors”.
With the explosion of e-commerce, which remains its preferred playground, Algolia saw its revenues grow by 180% in 2020, to more than $ 100 million. More surprisingly, its solutions are increasingly used internally by professionals (especially salespeople, human resources departments, etc.), which could encourage the start-up to further expand the scope of its activities.
For its part, Bubble had – on a voluntary basis – a slower start. She took seven years to develop her product: a no-code tool, in other words a solution that allows entrepreneurs who do not master the code to be able to develop complete online services themselves (Web application), thanks to a tool kit that is intended to be as intuitive as possible, and at a lower cost. The fundraiser she announced on Wednesday is her second after that of $ 6 million in 2019.
A major advantage
However, the start-up is thinking big. It wants to position itself as a leader in no-code and has created a marketplace in which “coders” can offer their own software bricks, for a commission of 25%. Focusing primarily on young companies, Bubble is convinced that its solution responds to problems encountered by all companies: the shortage of IT engineers, the cost associated with recruiting such profiles, and the time required to create all of them. plays an online service by coding it in the traditional way.
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