Startup studio Hexa acquires majority stake in Veevart, a vertical SaaS platform for museums

Hexa is attempting one thing new. As an alternative of fostering startups from the bottom up and incubating them for the primary 12 months or so, the Paris-based startup studio is buying a majority stake in Veevart, a vertical software-as-a-service firm for museums that gives options for ticketing, fundraising, CRM and assortment administration.

Hexa is a well-recognized identify within the French tech ecosystem. The startup studio initially began its life in 2011 as eFounders and recurrently comes up with concepts for brand spanking new tech firms. It tries to seek out the best founding group and helps them with product design, go-to-market technique, hiring, and fundraising.

After this primary section, the businesses turn out to be correct, unbiased startups, however Hexa retains a major stake on the cap desk. Some profitable Hexa portfolio firms embody Front, Aircall, Spendesk and Swan.

However Veevart isn’t a brand new startup. It was based in 2014 and now works with 160 museums and cultural establishments of all sizes world wide. With its group of 70 folks, Veevart is already worthwhile.

The product has been designed as an all-in-one platform for museums, constructed on prime of Salesforce. Museums that use Veevart can create and handle occasions, promote tickets on-line and onsite, handle memberships, automate communications to donors and combine with the museum store.

Many museums use a number of instruments for all these duties. Having a single platform makes it simpler to handle and preserve over time.

The explanation why Veevart depends closely on Salesforce comes right down to Veevart’s founder Antonio Velasco Echeverry — earlier in his profession, he had labored with Accenture and Salesforce.

“I wouldn’t say I ‘selected’ to construct on prime of Salesforce. Folks usually assume these choices are intentional, however truthfully, luck performs a giant half. We didn’t select Salesforce — it was merely the know-how I knew finest,” Velasco Echeverry instructed TechCrunch.

Regardless of some platform limitations, he added that constructing on prime of Salesforce has some benefits similar to safety, scalability and entry to all the Salesforce ecosystem.

Veevart has bootstrapped itself for the previous decade and has been worthwhile for some time — “not extremely worthwhile, however worthwhile,” Velasco Echeverry mentioned.

“So once we began conversations with Hexa, we weren’t wanting an excessive amount of for cash, however extra for a companion that might assist us get to our income targets quicker and with much less ache,” he added.

With this funding, Hexa acts as a kind of hands-on personal fairness companion. The startup studio is investing €5 million ($5.4 million at present trade charges) to turn out to be the principle shareholder in Veevart.

“Our goal is that Hexa will help us obtain $20 million in [annual recurring revenue], implement finest practices round product, [go-to-market], gross sales, and management,” Velasco Echeverry mentioned.

Personal fairness corporations usually don’t interact in small offers like this, whereas VC corporations usually search firms with high-growth potential. However Hexa believes it will possibly elevate Veevart to the subsequent degree by offering operational experience to speed up the corporate’s development.