Mark Zuckerburg and Jack Dorsey’s family office invests in French rival to Microsoft Excel

Marcus Baram
Author Marcus Baram

Marcus Baram is a contributing editor at Crain Currency, where he covers the intersection of finance and politics. Prior to joining Crain Currency, Baram was a staff writer at Fast Company and an editor at Huff Post. He has also written for outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Vice. Baram is an expert on economic policy and has a deep understanding of the ways in which politics shapes the global financial system. In his role at Crain Currency, he brings a unique perspective to the complex and ever-evolving world of finance. With his keen analysis and clear writing, Baram helps readers make sense of the important issues impacting the economy today.

Jun 08, 2023
1 year ago
Mark_Zuckerberg
Credit: BLOOMBERG

ICONIQ, the family office that manages the wealth of some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent billionaires including Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, just led a round of founding that raised $88 million for Pigment, a French business planning software startup. 

Felix Capital, Meritech, IVP, and FirstMark are venture capital firms that also took part in the fundraising.

Pigment’s business planning and forecasting platform, which is used by Klarna, Miro and other companies, has a user-friendly reputation and is designed to compete with Microsoft’s dominant spreadsheet platform Excel. In 2022, it grew its revenues by 600% and increased its userbase tenfold. 

The company’s cofounders and dual CEOs Eleonore Crespo and Romain Niccoli told CNBC that they planned to use the funding to expand its reach in the U.S. and artificial intelligence. Last month, it launched a new service called Pigment AI, in the wake of the hype around ChatGPT, to let customers query data and automate analysis.

"We not only have users in the finance team but outside of finance, and that's super interesting for investors to hear that we are not a finance platform but a business database that can serve any business leader out there from HR to sales to marketing, to R&D [research and development]," said Crespo.

Marcus Baram
Author Marcus Baram

Marcus Baram is a contributing editor at Crain Currency, where he covers the intersection of finance and politics. Prior to joining Crain Currency, Baram was a staff writer at Fast Company and an editor at Huff Post. He has also written for outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Vice. Baram is an expert on economic policy and has a deep understanding of the ways in which politics shapes the global financial system. In his role at Crain Currency, he brings a unique perspective to the complex and ever-evolving world of finance. With his keen analysis and clear writing, Baram helps readers make sense of the important issues impacting the economy today.