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CLM specialist Agiloft gets $45 million investment, starts growth strategy with new CEO

08/17/2020 By and

Agiloft, a specialist in contract lifecycle management (CLM), has charted a new course for itself by landing its first outside investment in the company’s three-decade history and adding new leadership, the California-based vendor announced Monday.

In a $45 million growth equity investment from FTV Capital, Agiloft Founder Colin Earl will hand the reins to a new CEO, and Earl, as the new CTO, will continue to lead the product development that he and Agiloft are known for. This strategy hopes to boost Agiloft’s AI-based product offerings and expand its presence into other industries and a more global market.

“Over the last several years, Agiloft has earned its rightful place among the top tier of standalone CLM solutions,” said Nick Heinzmann, research analyst at Spend Matters. “Its strong technological foundation, particularly its highly configurable no-code platform, is paired with competitive contract management functionality and an emerging set of AI capabilities for contract analytics.

“Yet Agiloft is perhaps less well known than its functional prowess would suggest — especially since it has maintained some of the highest customer reference scores across our SolutionMap benchmark since its initial entry, making it a consistent Value Leader across all personas in our CLM SolutionMap. In this context, the funding announcement and leadership restructuring opens up a compelling opportunity for Agiloft to more readily penetrate industries and customer segments in which it has not traditionally competed.”

Agiloft will now be led by Eric Laughlin, an executive with experience in the legal tech field. Laughlin most recently served as global leader of legal managed services at Ernst & Young, where he managed the Pangea3 and Riverview Law teams and provided clients with technology and service solutions in the contracts, e-discovery and compliance domains globally.

With the coronavirus disruption accelerating companies’ digital transformation plans and encouraging adoption of automation in long manual business processes, the contract itself has more importance and a more dynamic role in adding value to businesses. Laughlin’s goal of growing Agiloft’s business dovetails with that trend in contract technology.

What sets Agiloft apart from other CLM vendors? Read our What Makes It Great column to learn the three key areas that make Agiloft a top SolutionMap performer.

“Eric not only has a track record of success, growing and leading large global organizations, he has the vision, domain expertise and integrity to lead Agiloft in its next phase of growth and product innovation,” Earl said in a press release. “The search took over a year — and it was well worth it to find the right individual.”

Laughlin said he’s focused on building upon Agiloft’s history of innovation and company growth.

“Colin and his team at Agiloft have built a unique company, emphasizing customer-focused execution and a culture of trust and transparency — all built on a foundation of technical excellence,” Laughlin said in the release. “The result has been steadily accelerating growth and consistent profitability. I’m honored to have been chosen to lead Agiloft in the next chapter of its development. A big part of my role will be to grow the company while maintaining the elements that have made it so successful.”

The investment comes from FTV Capital, which supports businesses that focus on enterprise technology and services, financial services, and payments and transaction processing. Two FTV executives, Alex Mason and Abhay Puskoor, will join Agiloft’s board.

“Agiloft has established itself as a trailblazer in the fast-growing market for contract and commerce lifecycle management software,” said Alex Mason, partner at FTV Capital. “To develop a no-code product that customers love, while prioritizing profitable growth without external investment, is a remarkable achievement. We are proud to be a collaborative partner to the Agiloft team and look forward to the exciting journey ahead.”

Look for more Agiloft coverage from Spend Matters in the coming weeks. In the meantime, organizations interested in understanding the components and relative strengths and weaknesses of the Agiloft CLM solution can review our prior coverage of the vendor on Spend Matters PRO:

Disclosure: Spend Matters was an advisor to FTV Capital in this transaction.