Over the last 10 years, we’ve had the pleasure of raising capital for a diverse range of high-growth New Zealand businesses. In our latest blog series, we’re revisiting some of those key company capital raises and checking in with the companies to discover what raising funds via Snowball Effect helped them achieve and their subsequent business growth and success.
In this article, we chat with Projectworks founder and Chief Product Officer Matthew Hayter.
What is Projectworks?
Projectworks is a cloud-based business management platform designed specifically for the professional services industry. We simplify project management, project financials, and people management. Ultimately, we help increase profits and improve staff utilisation. Projectworks is built by professional services experts, for professional services, predominantly in the software, consulting and engineering industries.
How did Snowball Effect support Projectworks?
Snowball Effect’s priority with this capital raise was to act as an advisor to Projectworks and broker investment from a range of investors. This included a key focus on experienced venture capital funds with a background in scaling SaaS businesses globally and strategic high net worths, company employees, and Projectworks clients.
Incoming investors joined Projectworks founders, early investors, and major shareholder Bridgewest, a global private equity firm with investments in innovative software, in supporting the company's growth.
What did the capital raised help Projectworks achieve?
Projectworks successfully raised $3.5m in 2022. Venture capital investment firm Punakaiki Fund invested $2m, with the remaining $1.5m coming from high net-worth investors with experience in the SaaS industry, along with Projectworks’ founders and employees.
The funds raised have helped Projectworks accelerate its investments in sales, marketing, engineering, and customer support to build out a robust SaaS product suitable for the global market, particularly the United States. Earlier this year, Projectworks was ranked number 557 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in the US, displaying an impressive 798% growth over the past three years.
Due to the capital raise, we also gained plenty of media attention, which significantly bolstered our organic search traffic and had a material impact on demo booking rates.
What was your experience raising capital with Snowball Effect?
We had a great experience with Snowball Effect. We had a strong plan, we were in a safe pair of hands, and it was well-organised and under control. Snowball acted as our investment banker, bringing their strong network and expertise to the table. The Information Memorandum (IM) preparation was very professional. We received a lot of comments on how polished the IM was and the great job it did of articulating our plans. The IM played a key part in attracting the professional investors we sought.
What’s next for Projectworks?
Projectworks recently became a US-based company and employed its 50th staff member. We are now well-positioned to further our US expansion plans, which include taking on further investment from US investors and building out an engineering team in the San Francisco Bay Area.
