Irish SaaS Kianda gets €1.5m to develop its low-code tech platform

18 Oct 2021

Kianda co-founders Derya and Osvaldo Sousa. Image: Andres Poveda

Kianda will use the funding to expand its global client base, further develop its product and double its team by early 2022.

Dublin-based SaaS company Kianda Technologies has received a €1.5m investment to expand its team and further develop its low-code platform for businesses.

Kianda helps users with little to no knowledge of coding to digitise their business and streamline processes such as approval workflows, inspection checklists and employee onboarding, with the aim of helping them save both on cost and time.

The investment was led by the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by Kernel Capital on the island of Ireland. Enterprise Ireland also backed the funding round.

Riding on a remote working wave since the onset of the pandemic, Kianda has seen strong growth and now supports more than 25,000 users through clients such as DEME Group, Mercury, Uniphar, Resco Products and Aji Bio-Pharma.

The cloud-based platform, launched in 2017 by Derya and Osvaldo Sousa, has clients spread across the UK, US, Belgium and Australia. It currently has 10 employees in its Dublin office and plans to use the funding to double the team by early 2022.

“Kianda is a solid company ideally placed to capitalise on the acceleration in digital transformation as the remote and hybrid working environment takes hold,” Kernel managing partner Niall Olden said.

Expansion potential

COO Derya Sousa said she wants to use the funding to grow the company and help it become a market leader in the no-code development space. This market is expected to grow from $13.2bn globally in 2020 to more than $45bn in 2025, according to Marketsandmarkets analysis.

“Our motto is ‘we are makers’ and we want to empower people with or without tech skills to become makers like us and address their digitalisation needs themselves,” she said.

Kianda will also use the funding to expand its base of global clients. According to the company, more than 60pc of its revenue is generated from exports.

Derya and Osvaldo Sousa, who is the CEO, are software professionals who moved to Ireland in 2007 from Turkey and Angola, respectively. In 2016, they both quit their jobs and started Kianda with support from their Local Enterprise Office in Fingal.

Derya is an advocate for women in STEM and is on the 2021 shortlist for the Women in IT Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Niall McEvoy, manager of Enterprise Ireland’s high-potential start-ups, said that Kianda is a good example of an innovative early-stage start-up that has capitalised on an emerging market opportunity.

“The continuous drive towards digitisation offers significant potential for Kianda to scale and disrupt across multiple sectors.”

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Vish Gain is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com