Anaplan ramps up in Australia

Anaplan, a developer of a cloud-based planning and collaboration software, is ramping up its presence in Australia with a new A/NZ office, following a $100 million funding injection in mid-May.

The San Francisco firm raised the money in a Series D financial round led by DFJ Growth, bringing total investment in the company to $150 million.

Salesforce.com is a major investor and Anaplan’s technology plugs into the global CRM software provider’s platform.

CEO Frederic Laluyaux, who was in Sydney today spruiking Anaplan’s wares, said the company already had around 10 customers in Australia, some of its latest being Target Australia and Super Retail Group.

The software was developed over six years and is built on an in-memory calculation engine dubbed HyperBlock. This provides sales, finance, and operations staff with real-time data to generate financial modelling and business planning on the fly.

New Australian and New Zealand boss, Rajeev Mitroo, said the software addresses the huge problem of unifying data from across the enterprise in real time, and allowing businesses to accurately undertake any form of business modelling and planning.

Some commentators have touted the software as an “Excel killer” but Laluyaux said the firm was challenging enterprise software giants such as SAP, Oracle, and IBM.

He said these larger companies have been focused on the “wrong problems” and the market for planning and collaboration has been under-served for a very long time through lack of innovation.

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