BarronKent LLC, a private Sacramento family office investment group, led the recent $1.5 million funding round into gov-tech company Streamline Software Inc.
Streamline raised the money to fuel growth for its expansion across the country. The company, headed by CEO Mac Clemmens, offers software for government special districts, through a subscription website platform.
“Mac is an experienced founder, he’s got an experienced board,” said BarronKent co-founder Robert Rodriguez, adding that Streamline is in a strong niche market of government technology that takes time and experience to even understand.
Rodriguez was the founder of Cambria Solutions, a consulting company he started in 2003 and sold to Ernst & Young LLP last year. The value of that transaction was not disclosed. Cambria was an information technology consulting firm that specialized in government and health care work. It had 300 employees and eight offices across the country when it sold.
BarronKent is a family office private investment vehicle that Rodriquez and his partner and wife Grietje Reuter founded a year ago to make investments in technology, real estate and professional staffing. Reuter has had a career as an independent technology consultant.
“We use our backgrounds and our experience to make investments. We don’t take on any other investors,” Rodriguez said, adding that BarronKent does invest as a co-investor with other groups and individuals. In the Streamline investment, BarronKent was joined by Rocklin-based Growth Factory, among others. Rodriguez declined to say how much BarronKent invested.
Cambria Solutions had been on Inc. magazine’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies list nine times in its 18 years in business.
The former Cambria headquarters in Downtown Sacramento is now Ernst & Young’s Sacramento location. Rodriguez still owns the building with a separate partnership, Cassadyne LLC. He bought the building at Eighth and K streets from the city in 2018 and completed a renovation in 2020 to turn the former bank building into a sleek Downtown office with ground-floor retail space.
The Sacramento region is seeing more family office investors, said Nathan Torinus, who a year ago launched TOR Wealth Advisors in Folsom as an advisory firm for business owners, high-net-worth families and family offices.
“There have been some successful sales, so there are more pots of money,” he said. Some people like to hire an adviser to make investments, and other people like to be engaged and find investments on their own, he said.
Streamline's clients include sewer districts, fire departments, utilities and other quasi-governmental agencies. It builds its sites in proprietary custom software, and charges special districts $1,000 a month for access to its software-as-a-service platform. The company has more than a 98% renewal rate from customers, which are located in 21 states. In the past nine months, Streamline has doubled its number of customers from 700 in November to 1,400 in August this year.
Clemmens has said he anticipates Streamline will seek a venture capital round early next year of between $4 million and $8 million to continue its growth.
