Greymatter.io CEO Christopher Holmes is optimistic about his company’s ability to hire and grow revenue this year, especially with millions of dollars in new early-stage funding — but he thinks he can do that in much smaller space.
The 7-year-old startup has been based in Old Town Alexandria at 106 N. Lee St., where it currently has roughly 7,500 square feet. The building — Founders Hall, coworking space operated by ALX Community — opened in 2018 and greymatter.io renewed its lease there early in the pandemic. But despite the company's recent $7.1 million Series A raise, Holmes said he has already told the landlord he doesn’t plan to renew the two-year lease when it expires in January. Its next offices, he said, will be significantly smaller, despite its ramped-up hiring plans with the new financial backing.
“That [space] is too much, I can tell you right now,” Holmes said in an interview.
Around 60 people work at greymatter.io today, Holmes said, about 70% of whom are based in the region from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia. The rest are spread out among nearly a dozen other states, including a growing contingency in the Denver area and in Austin, Texas.
Started in 2015, greymatter.io helps companies and organizations manage and secure their software. The firm said it has clients in the government and public sectors, as well as pilot programs in the banking, financial services and telecommunications sectors.
Following its first-ever raise last month — which was led by Austin, Texas’ Elsewhere Partners — hiring has risen to a top priority, per Holmes, with plans to grow the headcount to about 75 by the end of 2022. Already, the company brought on a director of engineering and sales account executives, among other key positions, but this year, it’ll also hire a chief product officer, product managers and product owners, as well as site reliability engineers and developers.
“We’re going to be hiring like crazy, putting a lot of the enablers in place,” Holmes said.
So when it comes to the headquarters, he said, the current space is too much for the local staff’s current daily needs, but likely not sufficient for all-hands gatherings either. “Not enough people are coming into the building," he said. "When everyone comes in, it’s not enough space.”
He said the company has decided the next office will still be in Old Town, but will consume only about half the square footage, offering more of a coffee-shop-like hub for customer meetings, as well as a “big conference room that’s set up with all the great [audio-visual] stuff.” It also plans to create similar hubs in cities across the country.
The Series A raise should fund the company’s expansion for the next 18 months or so, he said. After that, the plan is to do a Series B funding round either with Elsewhere or another venture firm, Holmes said, barring the kind of revenue growth that would make additional backing unnecessary.
The company brought in approximately $15 million in revenue in 2021, and Holmes hopes to reach at least $10 million in annual recurring revenue within 18 months. The first raise was about “building out the company, getting more commercial traction in new markets,” he said, pointing in particular to fintech and health care as targets for growth. A future Series B round, he said, would be about further expanding into more markets.
Greymatter.io has seen revenue growth of about 20% year-over-year, but Holmes projects that rate to increase next year with the recent investment and hires. “So, in 2023, it is all about growth," Holmes said. “For me, I want big growth. Twenty percent [year-over-year] wouldn’t be enough.”
