WalkMe raises $90 million to help people navigate user interfaces with on-screen prompts

WalkMe, a “digital adoption platform” (DAP) that helps companies integrate on-screen product walkthroughs into their software, has raised $90 million in a round of funding led by Vitruvian Partners, with participation from Insight Partners.

This takes WalkMe’s total funding to more than $300 million, including its $50 million series F round last November, when it was valued at more than $1 billion. The company says it has nearly doubled its valuation over the past year, which should put it at around $2 billion.

Founded in 2011, San Francisco-based WalkMe creates tools that enable software makers to build user-focused help functionality into their products. This may include things like tip-balloon overlays to highlight new or notable features that can be leveraged to train employees or onboard new customers. The technology can also be used to push users toward redeeming a free trial or to convert free users to a paid account. The WalkMe platform also leans heavily on automation to make real-time contextual suggestions based on how a user is interacting with an interface.

User friendly

With every company now effectively becoming a software company, the need to reduce bounce rates and increase product adoption through user-friendly interfaces has never been as important. This is why being able to track how customers use online properties is so important. Companies use various tools to monitor drop-off rates on websites, thereby helping to identify areas that cause the most friction for customers and make improvements. WalkMe works in a similar vein, insofar as companies use it to glean insights into end-user behavior, but on top of that it injects support tools into apps and websites for situations where a user may be likely to drop off.

A number of companies operate in the DAP space, including San Jose’s Whatfix, which raised a $12.5 million investment earlier this year, and Raleigh’s Pendo, which raised $100 million two months ago at a $1 billion valuation. As it happens, WalkMe filed a lawsuit against Pendo last year, alleging that Pendo’s use of “lightboxes” and “tooltips” to help guide users through a software application violated its intellectual property — a New York District Court judge dismissed the case in April of this year.

WalkMe said it now works with some 2,000 clients globally, and in Q2 of this year it passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). With another $90 million in the bank, it plans to double down on its global growth, with a particular focus on Latin America.

“This latest round of funding speaks to our success and to the untapped potential of digital adoption,” said WalkMe cofounder and president Rafael Sweary. “WalkMe transforms how organizations gain visibility into their end-to-end business processes, driving workforce productivity, increasing customer satisfaction, and achieving higher operational efficiencies.”