Sheryl Sandberg’s Fund Backs Pigment in $145 Million Round

French software startup Pigment SAS has become the newest unicorn in the country after raising $145 million in venture capital, just 10 months after its previous financing round. The funding round was primarily backed by Pigment’s existing investors, with the only new participant being Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, the fund led by former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg and her husband Tom Bernthal.

The round values Pigment above $1 billion, marking a significant milestone for the five-year-old startup. Pigment sells planning and forecasting software mainly to finance departments, and has expanded its product offerings to include solutions for human resources, supply-chain management, and large-language model deployment.

Positioned as a sleeker alternative to Microsoft Excel, Pigment competes directly with Anaplan Inc., Oracle Corp., and SAP SE. The company doubled its customer base in 2023 and counts blue-chip clients like Unilever Plc and Merck KGaA. With the new funding, Pigment plans to double its team of engineers to enhance its products and develop new ones.

The investment was led by Iconiq Capital, with participation from Sandberg’s fund and earlier backers IVP, Greenoaks, and Felix Capital. Despite Europe lagging behind the US in venture dealmaking and exits, the region's startup funding is rebounding to pre-pandemic levels, with enterprise software firms accounting for a significant portion of venture deals in Europe last year.