The American-Bulgarian company LucidLink, which develops software for rapid communication and collaboration in the cloud, has raised a series C funding round worth $75 million. The company was co-founded by Georgi Dochev and half of its operations are conducted in Bulgaria. The lead investor in the current round is US-based VC fund Brighton Park Capital, joined by Headline Ventures, Baseline Ventures and Adobe Ventures, software giant Adobe's fund, all of which are previous investors in the company. The company was previously financed by Bulgarian fund BrightCap, which participated in three earlier rounds, including the earliest financing.
LucidLink wouldn't comment on the company's valuation, but after the previous funding round in mid-2022 it was valued at $200 million on a $20 million investment, suggesting that with the new round, its valuation is likely to cross the $500 million mark. With the new investment, the total external financing raised by the company reaches $115 million.
"We will use the money to accelerate our most ambitious plans for the product, expand our leadership position in the technology and create personalized ways of using the product that will allow creative professionals to work more efficiently," commented Dochev, who in addition to being the co-founder is also the company's technical director.
Hot money in cold times
LucidLink was founded in 2016 by Georgi Dochev and Peter Thompson. The company develops software that enables ultra-fast connection to cloud services by different people and in different places, who can work on the same file at the same time. This makes it particularly attractive to the media industry, where most of the company's customers are from - Spotify, Buzzfeed, Adobe, and TV and film studios, among others.
According to LucidLink, its annual recurring revenue (ARR) has more than quintupled in the past two years, while its user base has quadrupled. This has allowed the company to raise an impressive round in a particularly difficult year for venture capital, where macroeconomic shocks are felt much more strongly than in the stock market.
"We were in a position where we didn't need to raise funding, but our hypothesis was that given that our performance and our fundamentals are very strong despite the economic problems, maybe the timing will be right for LucidLink. Because of all the struggling startups and the contraction of valuations happening in the industry, there is now a serious battle for quality startups," Peter Thompson, co-founder and CEO of LucidLink, claims.
"Our business is growing, we have a strong customer base that we retain, and that, along with the fact that many of our customers openly say they couldn't operate without our software, has convinced us that we can attract investors. What we didn't expect was the avalanche of requests from venture capital funds. In the end, raising capital was not difficult at all - finding the right partner was the bigger challenge. We are very pleased with how everything turned out," adds Thompson.
In Bulgaria, LucidLink operates via the Bulgarian company LucidLink, which reports revenues for 2022 of 6.1 million levs and has around 60 employees as of September this year. It is owned by the American LucidLink Corp. The company is currently actively hiring people for its local office.
The American-Bulgarian company LucidLink, which develops software for rapid communication and collaboration in the cloud, has raised a series C funding round worth $75 million. The company was co-founded by Georgi Dochev and half of its operations are conducted in Bulgaria. The lead investor in the current round is US-based VC fund Brighton Park Capital, joined by Headline Ventures, Baseline Ventures and Adobe Ventures, software giant Adobe's fund, all of which are previous investors in the company. The company was previously financed by Bulgarian fund BrightCap, which participated in three earlier rounds, including the earliest financing.
LucidLink wouldn't comment on the company's valuation, but after the previous funding round in mid-2022 it was valued at $200 million on a $20 million investment, suggesting that with the new round, its valuation is likely to cross the $500 million mark. With the new investment, the total external financing raised by the company reaches $115 million.
