productboard Raises $1.3 Million in Seed Funding to Build System of Record for Product Management
Index and Credo invest in productboard’s vision to help companies make products people want
San Francisco — October 18, 2016 — productboard, the pioneering system of record for product management, today announced it has raised its first round of capital — $1.3 million in seed funding. The investment, co-led by Index Ventures and Credo Ventures with participation from Spread Capital, will accelerate the development of productboard’s meticulously-designed SaaS platform for product discovery, which helps digital product teams understand what to build next, for whom, and why. This investment round follows an earlier convertible note by Rockaway Capital, bringing total funding to $1.7 million.
“Our mission is to rally teams around a common vision for what their users really need so they can build wildly successful products,” said Hubert Palan, founder and CEO of productboard. “With the support of Index and Credo, we’re delivering on this vision, and have already seen real demand in the market for a solution like productboard. It certainly helps to share investors with other design-focused, visionary companies like Slack and Intercom.”
With the rise of lean mindsets, agile development, user-centered design, and fact-based collaborative decision-making, productboard helps product leaders understand what their users need, prioritize what to build, and collaborate over their product roadmaps — all in one place. Built in response to the struggles many digital product teams face in deciding what functionality to build next, productboard is poised to be the product management tool of choice.
“In order to be successful, product teams need to create roadmaps based on customer needs. However, given the lack of centralized tools today, too many product teams don’t understand what their users actually want and end up struggling with how to effectively prioritize,” said Ilya Fushman, Partner at Index Ventures and previous Head of Product at Dropbox. “With productboard, product teams have one primary location to channel customer inputs into winning product strategies.”
“productboard is the first product management tool I’ve used that actually mirrors our process. Its focus on capturing real user needs and surfacing them intelligently throughout the product prioritization process has made it far easier for me to do my job well,” said Alon Bartur, Director of Product at Trifacta.
Following a ten-month beta, productboard was launched on September 12, at TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield San Francisco. It now powers product management at 150+ customer companies including Avast, BambooHR, Sprout Social and Envoy.
About productboard
productboard is a system of record for product management that helps teams make products people want. It helps product leaders understand what users need, prioritize what to build, and automate their roadmaps — all from one place. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Prague, Czech Republic, productboard is the product management tool of choice at over 150 companies worldwide, including Avast, BambooHR, Sprout Social, and Envoy. With productboard’s emphasis on product discovery, product leaders can finally enjoy peace of mind by knowing exactly what to build for whom and why.
About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a multi-stage venture capital firm founded to support the best and most ambitious entrepreneurs, wherever they emerge. With a global network and headquarters in London and San Francisco, Index has teamed up with founders in the U.S., Europe and Israel who are building the world’s next great companies.
About Credo Ventures
Credo Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Prague, Czech Republic with over 70 million EUR of assets under management. Currently investing out of its second fund, Credo seeks the best technology startups with global ambitions from Central Europe. Credo invests primarily in Seed and Series A stages, anywhere between 100 thousand EUR to 6 million EUR. To date, Credo has invested in 25 companies from the region and its successful exits include COSE (sold to Cisco Systems), Represent.com (sold to CustomInk) or Brainient (sold to Teads).
About Spread Capital
Spread Capital is an investment company primarily focused on supporting global projects with the involvement of Czech entrepreneurs. Since its inception in 2012, it has supported 13 projects in the Czech Republic and in the United States with over $30 million of seed and Series A funding.
About Rockaway Capital
Rockaway Capital is a global venture capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Prague and Sao Paolo. The firm invests in high growth, transformational companies across e-commerce, B2B SaaS, Fintech, and travel/transportation. Rockaway supports its portfolio through a value-creation program to build the necessary functions and competencies to help the company reach its objectives, scale globally and drive investment appreciation for investors.
