Mendix was started in the Netherlands in 2005 by three founders focused on finding a faster, easier way for enterprises to create internal software applications.

Background:

The team bootstrapped the company for five years, slowly building a business in Europe focused on rapid application development through “low-code” development techniques—using visual models, and less hand coding, to help businesses build critical new apps quickly and cost effectively.

In 2012, CEO Derek Roos moved the company’s headquarters to Boston to go after the huge U.S. market. Soon, Roos started looking for an experienced, U.S.-based investment partner that could help Mendix add talent to its senior leadership team and scale go-to-market operations more aggressively (the company’s biggest competitor at the time was Salesforce’s Force.com business). Battery led a $25 million, Series B investment in the company in 2014.

Battery’s Impact:

For the next four years, Battery General Partner Michael Brown worked closely with Mendix to support the company’s growth through investments in new product development, sales and marketing. The investment was typical of the type of “hop the pond” deals Battery has pursued many times in the last decade: Investing in fast-growing, European B2B tech companies and then helping them move headquarters, or at least go-to-market operations, to a U.S. city to be closer to the lucrative U.S. tech-buying market.

Battery also recruited key Mendix executives to support international growth including:

• Two VPs of sales
• Two VPs of customer success
• VP of human resources
• CMO

Outcome:

Two years after Battery invested, Mendix had nearly doubled its sales resources. Upselling/expansion sales grew rapidly as the company continued to win and penetrate larger enterprise clients. Siemens acquired Mendix for $730 million in August 2018.