Retool, an application development platform for internal tools, announced it has raised $45 million in Series C2 funding at a $3.2B valuation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, Daniel Gross, and Caryn Marooney.
The San Francisco-based company raised $20 million in Series C funding in December 2021, opting for a smaller round. As Retool Co-founder and CEO David Hsu explained, the company chose to optimize its funding strategy for the benefit of its employees and the long-term health of the company, rather than the optics of the highest valuation.
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“Instead of chasing large valuations, we remain focused on expanding our team and delivering value to our customers and developers,” remarked Hsu. “In the last year alone, we’ve launched hundreds of new features and improvements, handled billions of queries across the Retool platform, and seen strong traction globally, including in Europe and APAC with customers like Checkout.com and CRED.”
Retool will primarily use its funds to invest more aggressively in headcount, new products and platform improvements, and international expansion. The company, which counts Amazon, NFL, NBCUniversal, and Pinterest among its customers, recently moved its headquarters into the historic Hamm’s Building in San Francisco, and is building out employee hubs in New York City, London, and Seattle.
“Historically, internal tools have been seen as a luxury at best, and a distraction at worst—something you don’t want core engineers working on,” said Bryan Schreier, partner at Sequoia, “With Retool, the calculus changes; internal tools are 10x easier to build, and can help teams move faster and reimagine how they operate. In a time when many companies are tightening their belts, the right internal tools that empower teams to do more with less is a competitive advantage.”
Retool also announced today major updates to its free plan for developers, which now allows teams of up to five users to build unlimited apps. With this new free plan, startups, small teams, and solo developers can build unlimited apps using Retool’s 90+ pre-built components, 40+ data and API connections, and Retool’s app hosting service.