Portugal's OutSystems gains big investment
OutSystems announced Tuesday that North Bridge Capital has made an investment of 50.6 million euros ($55 million). The new funds will be used by the Portuguese rapid application development vendor primarily to strengthen sales, marketing and support capacity in international markets, but also for R&D. Two areas of particular focus will be machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT).
CEO Paulo Rosado said that the company has 120 jobs open now and plans to hire more over the coming year.
It expects that the supply of human resources in Portugal will be sufficient for the organization's needs, at least for now. Half of the new hires will serve organizations in Portugal, including one based in Proenca-a-Nova. The other 50 percent will go to marketing activities and customer support in foreign markets.
Rosado did not disclose the company's revenue for 2015, but suggested the amount was between 150 million and 200 million euros: to receive an investment of the size just announced, a company usually has a turnover of that level, he said.
The North Bridge investment particularly serves the ambitions of the company in the U.S. market, where its main competitors are located.
The company also intends to increase its partner network dramatically; it is now made up of 135 organizations.
OutSystems has direct operations in 11 regions and in 22 countries, and has a portfolio of 600 customers spread over 33 countries.