M-Files expands ECM channel with $36m venture capital

M-Files has secured $36 million Series B funding and will use the money to help grow its channel. The funding was led by Partech Ventures, with participation from Finnish Industry Investment and Draper Esprit.

The new investment will further accelerate existing sales and marketing activities around the company’s enterprise content management solution, as well as expansion into new markets in North America, EMEA and APAC.

The company will also focus on expanding and strengthening its global partner network, which currently consists of over 450 partners operating in more than 100 countries.

While other systems manage information according to antiquated folder structures, with M-Files, content is not tied to a specific location, but is “intuitively” classified and managed based on “what” it is versus “where” it’s stored. This approach, said M-Files, also enables organisations to easily and directly integrate core business systems, such as CRM, ERP and HR, with documents and other unstructured content.

The M-Files approach relies on a “unique” metadata-driven architecture that enables users to quickly find and access information based on its relevance, regardless of the system or repository in which it is stored.

The patent-pending technology also forms the foundation of a “revolutionary” new repository-agnostic solution, that creates an “intelligent metadata layer” that overlays and unifies existing data repositories and core business systems, including Documentum, OpenText, SharePoint, Box, Salesforce, SAP and others.

“We’re excited about working with the world-class team at Partech Ventures to accelerate our plans for sustained growth,” said Miika Mäkitalo, CEO of M-Files Corporation. “We’re succeeding by helping customers in a variety of industries with key business processes related to accounting, HR and quality management, with solutions that are simple, secure and scalable.”

He said: “This funding will enable us to build on that success, as well as further develop our world-class professional services organisation, and expand local teams in the UK, continental Europe and APAC to better support our customers and partners.”

“Partech Ventures invested in M-Files not only because of their demonstrated track record of success, proven leadership and enormous market potential, but also because we saw a unique vision for a new generation of solution beyond traditional document management and enterprise content management (ECM), that has the potential to transform the market,” said Bruno Crémel, general partner at Partech.

@AntonySavvas