If G2 Crowd launched in 2012 as the Yelp for business software, its next stage of growth aims to position the Chicago startup as the Amazon for B2B software. And it just landed a huge new round of funding from a handful of major VC firms as the company sets its sights on an eventual IPO.
G2 Crowd announced Thursday that it has raised $55 million in a Series C round of funding led by Silicon Valley-based IVP. Other investors in the round include Emergence Capital, Accel and Pritzker Group Venture Capital. The round brings G2 Crowd's total amount raised to $100 million.
The funding comes amid a major evolution for the Chicago startup. It no longer wants to be a place just for business software reviews; it wants to be the platform where companies go to purchase all the business software that they need.
"This funding is about more than reviews," G2 Crowd CMO Ryan Bonnici said. "This funding is about building the world’s biggest business commerce platform."
The transition from a Yelp-style review platform to a true marketplace where companies can browse and purchase software is a logical next phase for growth for G2 Crowd. (Even Yelp itself became a platform that evolved into a food delivery service.) G2 Crowd's user base has grown quickly, amassing more than half a million reviews on nearly 60,000 software products. More than 23 million people have visited G2 Crowd to gain insights on the best products to purchase for their business.
And the company isn't shy about its ambitions. CEO and co-founder Godard Abel---who previously founded Steelbrick and sold it to Salesforce for $360 million, and founded BigMachines which was acquired by Oracle for more than $400 million---has said he wants to take G2 Crowd public in the next few years.
"That's definitely where we want to go," Bonnici said. "There’s no intention to sell. There's really just the goal to go public."
G2 Crowd has grown to around 215 employees, with 180 in its Chicago headquarters. Bonnici said it expects to grow to 1,000 employees in the next five years.
There are a handful of competitors in the B2B software review space, like Capterra and GetApp, but none that has the volume of reviews and products compared to G2 Crowd, Bonnici said.
"We’ve reached this point where we believe that there can only be one winner in the space of reviews, and we already see ourselves as being [that company]," he said.
Jules Maltz, general partner at IVP, agreed.
“When it comes to marketplaces, in today’s business climate it’s winner takes all," Maltz said in a statement. "What Amazon is for consumers, G2 Crowd is becoming for businesses: the place to discover and buy the best business solutions."
