Hayward, California — August 17, 2017 — Ripcord, the world’s first robotic digitization company dedicated to creating a truly paperless workplace, today announced a raise of $25M in equity and $15M in debt totaling $40M in Series B funding led by Icon Ventures with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Lux Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank. Ripcord will use the funding to bolster its production capacity by building new robots to meet the increasing demand for records digitization, build out the ‘Ripcord Canopy’ software capability for records management enterprise integration, hire over 100 new employees in the next 12 months, and expand into new markets.
Co-founded by former Apple and NASA employees, Ripcord enables companies to digitize paper records and connect those records to existing enterprise systems. Ripcord provides an alternative to outdated records management systems that are overly complex, require expensive customization, and take years to effectively implement. Ripcord’s new technology reduces digitization costs to a fraction of the marketplace’s legacy options by achieving better results at 10x the speed.
Ripcord delivers an end-to-end digitization solution that includes scanning, natural language search technology, records certification tools, and cloud access via ‘Ripcord Canopy’. Once records are uploaded to Ripcord Canopy, users can share and seamlessly connect records to other enterprise applications like SAP, Oracle, and NetSuite.
“Since Ripcord launched in March, we’ve been flooded with requests from some of the largest global companies needing our help to digitize their world,” said Ripcord CEO, Alex Fielding. “To keep up with demand, our investors doubled down to help us continue our mission of disrupting the $25B records management industry. Now, we’re fulfilling our promises by building even more robots and deploying our production version of Ripcord Canopy to give everyone the tools they need to securely access anything, anywhere, at any time.”
As part of the financing, Icon Ventures General Partner Jeb Miller will be joining the Ripcord Board of Directors. “Icon Ventures is proud to support the ground-breaking technology that Ripcord is developing and we’re confident that they’re revolutionizing the records management industry as it exists today,” said Mr. Miller. “Their explosive growth and impressive pipeline make Ripcord one of the most compelling applications of robotic technologies to disrupt and drive efficiency into this massive market. We look forward to applying the full resources of our firm to help the company capture this global market opportunity.”
Ripcord is working with innovative enterprise companies such as Bechtel, a global leader in engineering, procurement, and construction, to explore global records management transformation. Bechtel is actively using data analytics to enhance the delivery of complex projects to global customers and envisions the potential for Ripcord’s technology to accelerate the process. Bechtel has records in numerous locations, preserved on a wide variety of media, and stored in different systems. The goal is for Ripcord’s technology to reduce the total cost of records storage, make records more readily retrievable, and convert physical records to digital information about the business.
Based in Palo Alto, California, Icon Ventures is a technology venture capital firm specializing in mid-stage investing in companies with great entrepreneurs, compelling business models, and strong momentum in their respective markets. Icon Ventures has had the privilege to invest in market-leading companies such as Aster Data, ClairMail, FireEye, 41st Parameter, Infinera, MoPub, Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint, and Teladoc. For more information about Icon Ventures visit www.iconventures.com and follow @iconventures.
Kleiner Perkins partners with the brightest entrepreneurs to turn disruptive ideas into world-changing businesses. With $10 billion raised through 20 venture funds and four growth funds, the firm has invested in over 850 companies including pioneers such as Google, App Dynamics, Amazon, Flexus Biosciences, Nest, Waze, Twitter, JD.com, and Square. Kleiner Perkins offers entrepreneurs years of operating experience, puts them at the center of an influential network, and accelerates their companies from success to significance. For more information, visit www.kpcb.com and follow us @kpcb.
Lux Capital is a venture firm based in New York City and Silicon Valley investing in counter-conventional, seed and early stage science and technology ventures. Lux manages $1.1 billion in assets across five funds. For more information please visit www.luxcapital.com and follow @Lux_Capital.
For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has helped innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB provides targeted financial services and expertise through its offices in innovation centers around the world. With commercial, international, and private banking services, SVB helps address the unique needs of innovators. Learn more at svb.com
Ripcord is transforming the $25 billion records management industry through robots that scan, index and categorize paper records, making them searchable on the cloud and integrated into existing enterprise systems. Ripcord is based in Hayward, California and has raised $65 million from leading investors including Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Baidu, Lux Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, Steve Wozniak, Legend Star, and Icon Ventures. For more information, visit www.ripcord.com.