JFrog is an enterprise-software provider in the DevOps market. Its tools enable software updates to flow seamlessly and securely from the developer’s keystrokes into production.
Background:
Battery General Partner Dharmesh Thakker had a longstanding relationship with JFrog’s founder and CEO Shlomi Ben Haim, dating back to Thakker’s previous role at Intel Capital. In 2016, Thakker led Battery’s investment in JFrog’s series C financing round. Ben Haim was interested in working with Battery due to the firm’s domain expertise in open-source and cloud software; in addition, as a hybrid US-Israeli company, Battery’s senior-level presence in both markets, and its ability to help with R&D team building in Israel as well as with CIO introductions and go-to-market execution in the U.S., was attractive to the company.
Battery’s Impact:
- Becoming involved with JFrog while its revenue was still in the mid-teens, Battery took an active role in both the company’s senior-level sales and marketing hires as well as implementing best practices to scale the business. Battery advised on areas such as the company’s U.S. expansion–including moving from bottoms-up, developer-led product adoption to enterprise sales–and the scale of the company’s sales and marketing functions, setting the foundation for a strong, go-to-market function which grew the business 10X ahead of its IPO in September 2020.
- CEO Shlomi Ben Haim was also very calculated in driving JFrog’s growth, taking pride in steady, consistent growth with positive cash flows versus burning large amounts of money to achieve ‘growth at all costs’. Battery helped support Ben Haim’s ethos by advising on calculated business investments to drive growth while maintaining profitability.
- Battery was also actively involved in JFrog’s IPO preparation, from analyses for the business to working on its independent board-member search.
Outcome:
JFrog went public in September 2020, listed as FROG on the NASDAQ. Battery is committed to JFrog as a long-term partner and plans to be involved with the company for the long run as the company grows and penetrates new target markets.
The presented case study investment was made in particular economic and market conditions. There can be no assurance that Battery Venture would elect, or be able, to exploit similar opportunities in a similar manner under similar or different economic and market conditions. More generally, there can be no assurances that the Battery vehicles will have comparable investment opportunities in the future. No assumptions should be made that any investments identified above were profitable. It should not be assumed that recommendations made in the future will be profitable or comparable to the portfolio company described in this case study. For a full list of all Battery Ventures investments, please click here.
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