Scytl Closes $104M To Step Up Growth Of Its Electronic Voting Platform

Electronic voting company Scytl — whose name is pronounced ‘sight-el’ not ‘skittle/scuttle’ in case you’re wondering — has closed off a $104 million Series C funding round, with a $44 million tranche announced today.

The new investors contributing the latest and last tranche of funding in this round are Vy Capital, Adams Street Partners and Industry Ventures. Previous investors in this round were Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, investing $40 million in April; and SAP Ventures investing $20 million in July.

It’s the first funding Scytl has taken in since 2010 — when it closed a $9.2 million round, led by Balderton Capital, with Nauta Capital also participating — although the business has been profitable since 2006 and reports revenue growth averaging 70% per year.

The Barcelona-based company was founded back in 2001 with the intention of offering software and web tools to modernize the voting and election process. Its software platform now covers the whole election process, from planning and voter registration to online voting and election night reporting, and Scytl has built up customers in more than 35 countries, including in the US. It has offices in 15 cities.

Scytl said the new funding will be “primarily” be used to fund its R&D efforts and for strategic growth plans. Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reports Scytl’s intention is to go public in 2016 — and the $104 million is the necessary fuel to take it to the NASDAQ. We’ve reached out to Scytl for further comment on its IPO intentions and will update this story with any response. Update: A spokeswoman for the company described the financing as its “pre-IPO round”, adding that an IPO is “expected” in 2016.

“The reason why we need the capital despite the fact that we are profitable is because we are making acquisitions in the election modernization space. Thus far, we have acquired five companies since 2012: SOE Software and Maxim in the US, Gov2U and PressVote in Europe, and OAK Soluçoes in Brazil.  Additionally, we are investing heavily in R&D, around 20% of our revenue every year,” she added.

Commenting on the funding round in a statement, Justin Burden, Managing Director at Industry Ventures, said: “We believe Scytl is a transformative solution with global implications.  We are very impressed with the company’s technology and management team and look forward to partnering with them in this exciting time in the company’s growth.”