SEGRON, a leader in the next generation of active testing, today announces the completion of a new round of funding, bringing total capital raised to-date up to $10million. The funding round, led by OTB Ventures and Credo, comes amid significant momentum for the business, having achieved a leadership position in automation services for the telecoms industry. Proceeds from the raise will be used to fund international growth and expand into new industry verticals that are seeing a resurgence of demand and accelerated digital adoption as a result of the progression of the Covid-19 pandemic.
International scale to capture a $35bn market opportunity
SEGRON offers automated solutions to test new digital services in any location, with any device, anytime. SEGRON’s leadership position in test automation solutions for the telecoms ecosystem enables operators including Telefonica, T-Mobile Group and Swisscom to ensure optimal service quality for end-subscribers while enabling faster go-to-market for next-generation 5G and IoT services.
SEGRON’s success with telecoms operators in the European Union is now attracting attention from a wide array of international players in the global telecoms market. With Covid-19 increasing demand for telecoms services SEGRON has become an attractive partner for telecoms operators facing increased pressures to roll out next-generation networks at pace. This includes expansion into North America with a new agreement with a Canadian telecoms operator. In the year ahead, SEGRON is expecting to expand its global presence further to Middle East and Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.
Expanding from telecoms industry to e-commerce, automotive and consumer electronics
Automated testing also enables businesses undergoing rapid digital transformation to accommodate the growing list of testing requirements to ensure a high-performing user experience. SEGRON’s leadership in the telecoms industry has built momentum to expand into e-commerce, automotive and consumer electronics, with the first major OEM announced in the consumer electronics industry today as global handset manufacturer. The advanced AI based testing automation solution helps to keep pace with the mobile devices evolution, ensuring day 1 availability even with pre-released devices for testing automation.
Today’s new funding enables SEGRON to further expand into these adjacent industries and deploy automated testing solutions to enhance the end user experience while shortening the time-to-market for new products and services. In the next few years, the Company will focus on AI and anticipates the launch of a new product, Global Service Enabler in April 2021 which helps verify the performance of digital services over international and roaming networks from any location.
With the market dynamics in telecoms and new industry verticals, SEGRON anticipates growing by over 300% in the year ahead to achieve annual recurring revenues in excess of $5m on a run-rate basis.
According to Global Market Insights, the automation testing market is expected to grow at 15% CAGR between 2020 and 2026, reaching an estimated global market value of $35bn.
Hiring new talents for accelerated growth
In conjunction with today’s new funding round, SEGRON also announces the appointment of three new executives to the senior management team – Jean-Philippe Leloup joins as Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Rita D’Agostino joins as Chief Marketing Officer and Martin Hochmeister joins as Chief Revenue Officer.
Martin Hochmeister joined with leadership experience in technology business environments, most recently with automation business Scanpoint GMBH where he ran sales and marketing as the business scaled-up its growth within Europe. Rita D’Agostino joined SEGRON with international experience in digital marketing and big data. Rita’s background is in the automotive industry, with a career spanning Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Kia Corporation and Maserati.
Jean-Philippe Leloup joined SEGRON from IDI Group LLC, an investor in early stage companies playing an active role in business development and value creation. Similar to Rita D’Agostino, Jean-Philippe previously worked in the automotive industry, leading Ferrari’s business operations in central and eastern Europe before building Maserati Commercial as a new division within the Italian automaker.
Wireless connectivity in the automotive industry makes SEGRON a highly compelling partner for automotive OEMs looking to adopt technologies ranging from automated robotic assembly lines to self-driving cars. The vast bandwidth and low latency of wireless communication between devices and control systems require continuous and fully automated testing, creating a new market opportunity for SEGRON’s automation solutions.
Commenting on the fundraise, Thomas Groissenberger, founder and CEO of SEGRON, said: “This is an important milestone for SEGRON as we enable some of the world’s greatest innovators rising to the industrial-scale challenges and opportunities emerging in the past 12 months. Our automated solutions help companies to improve their end-customer’s experience, increase productivity and improve speed-to-market for new products and services. From a team of us working on a start-up, we are now scaling international and across industries to build the next generation of active testing.”
Marcin Hejka, co-founder and Managing Partner at OTB Ventures, said: “We are thrilled to be backing SEGRON at this crucial inflection point for the business. SEGRON is rapidly expanding with a strategy that addresses the needs of companies at the forefront of digital transformation, accelerated by Covid-19. New industries are adopting automated testing at pace, to quicky respond to fast-evolving consumer expectations and increased technological complexity of the digital ecosystem. SEGRON is a great example of first-class European software, enhancing the online experience of consumers and businesses around the world.”
Vladislav Jez, Partner at Credo Ventures, said: “While Covid-19 certainly accelerated the shift to digital services, we don’t expect this transformation to stop. SEGRON’s newest fundraising round and strong additions to its leadership team will enable its expansion into new industries, as demand for automated testing continues to grow as companies seek to push new technologies to consumers.”
As SEGRON looks to expand its industrial scale in new industries and international markets, it is anticipated that its workforce will increase by 30% by the end of 2021.
