WatchWire to Use TIMIA Investment for Product Development and Customer Success
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WatchWire is a New York-based software company on a mission: to bring sustainability and energy management together—because you can't do one without the other.
Andy Anderson, CEO
Earlier this year, the company partnered with TIMIA Capital to receive a USD $2.5 million investment facility. We caught up with CEO Andy Anderson to learn more about Watchwire’s growth journey and what the team plans to do with the capital.
About WatchWire
WatchWire (previously EnergyWatch) was established in 2000 as one of the first energy consulting and procurement advisory firms in the deregulated energy market in New York.
As the market evolved, the team recognized a need for a SaaS product and began to build a platform that would address the common challenges faced by its customers. Since then, WatchWire has become a leader in integrated sustainability and energy management software.
We made a decision to expand to software-as-a-service because standalone energy procurement has become commoditized at a time when mandated and quasi-mandated sustainability reporting is creating an enormous market opportunity.
“Yes, purchasing energy is an integral part of the process, but it’s typically a siloed, transactional approach. SaaS sustainability, energy data management, carbon accounting, and integrated reporting allows us to deliver further value by connecting our clients’ teams across operations, engineering, sustainability, asset management, and accounting, from the ground level through the C-suite,” explained Andy.
Today, with various non-standardized sources of data, multiple sustainability reporting schemas and frameworks, and increasing regulatory, investor, and stakeholder-driven demand, WatchWire helps its clients simplify sustainability and energy management.
Originally focused on the commercial and corporate real estate space in the US, the company realized it could solve similar problems for other sectors as well. WatchWire now serves its direct customers across a variety of industries globally, including industrial and manufacturing, big-box retail, government, healthcare, and education, as well as indirect customers such as utilities, ESCOs, and consultants.
WatchWire Team Dinner
Growth Journey
When it pivoted its focus from consulting to platform development, WatchWire bootstrapped for several years, building a robust team and culture, testing the platform’s product-market fit, gathering customer feedback, and honing the technology.
The company initially grew with the help of its talented, dedicated staff, and through referrals. In mid-2018, it raised capital to grow its sales and marketing teams. Over the next 12 months, the teams gained valuable market insights about WatchWire’s messaging, positioning, and pricing, which helped it focus its efforts on offering a market-leading sustainability and energy management platform.
As sales grew over the following years, WatchWire tracked its SaaS metrics and customer feedback closely. The executive team had confidence that if the company had the capital to continue investing in itself, it could produce further growth and higher team productivity. The team decided to seek investment in 2021 to take its product to the next level.
WatchWire – Real Time Monitoring Dashboard
Finding the Right Capital Fit
Sustainability is a hot industry for investors so WatchWire had no shortage of options when it came to investment partners. The executive team was certain about one thing: it wanted debt financing over equity to avoid more dilution of the business.
Non-dilutive capital was key for us. It’s simply much cheaper capital. Even if it’s just a bridge to something bigger like a larger VC round, TIMIA’s investment will help us get to the next stage without giving up more of our company, said Andy.
They found TIMIA in their search, met with the team shortly after that, and went through the usual funding process.
“TIMIA was a great fit for us and the whole process was quick and painless,” said Andy.
Looking for non-dilutive capital?
TIMIA Capital works with recurring revenue technology
companies between $2 – $20 million ARR.
Fueling Product and Customer Success Growth
WatchWire intends to put TIMIA Capital’s investment to work in several areas to meet two key objectives:
- To grow pipeline: Investing in the people, processes, and technology to meet our client and partner needs.
- To increase the close rate: Increasing investment in product-led growth, including self-service improvements to open up opportunities in the high-volume SMB space.
To achieve these objectives, the company will invest in product development to address some identified feature gaps. This development will add more functionality for existing clients and additional features that will help with expansion into other markets.
It also plans to invest further in customer success and support. Currently, most of the team is in New York so they intend to add headcount in different timezones to help with expansion opportunities.
Finally, WatchWire will invest in sales and marketing technology and marketing budgets to continue its outbound efforts.
The End Goal
WatchWire is heads-down, focused on its mission to unite sustainability and energy management and be a single source of truth for companies in their sustainability journey. It plans to double, if not triple, growth in the near future as it penetrates more markets and industries.
“The goal is just to keep building a great business in a deliberate, sustainable way,” said Andy.
We look forward to following their journey closely!
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