Continuous Delivery Platform CircleCI Nets $100M In Series E

Continuous delivery platform CircleCI has raised $100 million in a Series E funding round, according to TechCrunch.

The round was led by IVP and Sapphire Ventures, and under the deal’s terms, Cack Wilhelm of IVP will join the board while Sapphire’s Jai Das will join as an observer.

Last summer, CircleCI raised $56 million.

The total amount raised by the company is now $215 million, company officials said, declining to discuss the overall valuation.

CEO Jim Rose said it was a blessing to have the money, especially given the chaotic conditions of recent months due to the coronavirus pandemic. He said it was a good time to have “more brains around the table, not fewer.”

Rose said he sees a ripe area for new growth in the recent move to more remote work opportunities, as CircleCI helps with automation. Many people have had to shift to working from home so as to avoid transmitting or catching the coronavirus that has caused thousands of deaths in just the past week.

He said the move to more telework-style operations had DevOps teams feeling a new “urgency” for CircleCI’s services in recent weeks. The new investments from the funding round, then, will go toward helping with maintaining that surge in operations.

Companies doing as well as CircleCI tend to look toward an initial public offering (IPO), although Rose acknowledged that the current economic climate has made it less likely to happen for his company for the time being. He said the company would have to get some level of liquidity at some point, but the focus for now would be on helping customers and building the business even more — at least until the market becomes more predictable again.

Rose said CircleCI would eventually look at acquisitions with its new base of capital, although he didn’t make any commitments except that the company is “always looking around” at what is happening in the field.