Coherent raises $75M series B to enable hybrid-work era development

No-code software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider Coherent, which creates customized APIs out of business logic housed inside spreadsheets, today announced it has closed a $75 million series B funding round led by Maverick Capital. Coherent claims its mission is to “ignite building business software for coders and non-coders alike.”

The company’s platform, Coherent Spark, automatically converts any type of business logic within a spreadsheet – such as rules, formulas and data models – into an application programming interface that can easily connect to other front- and back-end applications. 

“We are literally turning old-school spreadsheet information automatically into usable data,” CEO and cofounder John Brisco told VentureBeat. “We can save hours and days of work time for developers with this API.”

Spark’s no-code app provides in a few minutes what can take days or weeks using a conventional business software development cycle (the manual processes of writing specifications, programming, testing and iterating), Brisco said. As a result, Spark frees up already-stretched IT teams to focus on providing business innovation, he said. 

“Thriving in today’s digital economy requires re-imagining the process of building business software by empowering existing employees with tools they know, instead of replacing or retraining them as programmers,” Brisco said. “With Coherent Spark, coders and non-coders alike can speed up digital transformation and cloud migration programs. This is an optimal solution for business and IT teams to build software together and it will become an indispensable part of any technology stack powering business operations.”

With more than 750 million users, Microsoft Excel is the world’s most ubiquitous business application; 59% of all companies use more than 1,000 spreadsheets daily to run critical business operations. Despite this, businesses have struggled to audit, manage, scale and connect spreadsheets seamlessly to other business applications. Brisco said. As a result, enterprises end up spending north of $430 billion globally on business-to-business (B2B) software and services, according to Grandview Research. 

Coherent Spark uses the universal familiarity of Microsoft Excel and layers on its API connectivity to applications, cloud scalability, automated testing, auditability and other enterprise-grade capabilities – bringing more efficiency to developers and line-of-business workers, Brisco said.

“Coherent Spark bridges the gap between the fast deployment of business applications and the familiarity of using spreadsheets,” said Albert Koh, senior investor at Owl Rock, a Blue Owl division.

More than 60 Fortune 500 global insurance companies and banks already have seen significant benefits from Coherent’s API platform. The company has a services partner network that includes Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, Cognizant, Capgemini, Capco and Synpulse.

Coherent customers include Pacific Life, Transamerica, AXIS Capital, Franklin Templeton and Chubb. The company competes in the API design and implementation market alongside Postman, SwaggerHub, Stoplight, Apiary, Mulesoft, SAP and several others, according to G2.com. The funding round included Maverick Ventures, Owl Rock, a Blue Owl division, GreatPoint Ventures and existing investors Cathay Innovation and Franklin Templeton.