Los Angeles VC firm backs Bentonville company with $26M investment

by Paul Gatling ([email protected]) 3,446 views 

Bentonville software firm Nuqleous has secured a $26 million investment from Blue Ladder Capital. The company announced the details Tuesday (July 25).

Founded earlier this year by Garrett Levey and Bill Kloza, Blue Ladder Capital is a venture capital firm based in Los Angeles. According to a news release, the firm invests in b2b enterprises and SaaS products.

As a result of the deal, Levey and Kloza are now co-presidents of Nuqleous. Paul Springmann, who helped launch Nuqleous a decade ago and is the company president, will transition into an advisory role.

“We partnered with Nuqleous due to their strong product/market fit and exceptional net promoter score — customers love the products,” Levey said in a statement. “We take a long-term view on partnering with companies and are excited to continue to build an enduring business. Nuqleous’ product portfolio is highly differentiated and delivers a significant return on investment to customers; we look forward to expanding our commitments to existing customers while expanding both nationally and internationally.”

Nuqleous was founded in 2013 and has 50 employees. The company develops technology services to help improve business operations for retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. In the release, Nuqleous said its software products enhance margins, reduce inefficiencies and boost sales for more than 700 categories across 3,700 brands with $40.9 billion in annualized sales.

Nuqleous works with over 75 blue-chip companies (Kraft-Heinz, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Anheuser-Busch, Unilever) servicing the largest retailers, c-stores and grocers (Walmart, Target, 7-Eleven, CVS, Kroger). The company achieved consecutive placements on the Inc. 5000 annual list of fastest-growing companies.

“We raised capital to accelerate product innovation and double down on our customer-led growth strategy,” Paul Sims, co-founder and CEO of Nuqleous, said in the release. “We are dedicated to enhancing our customers’ lives through automation and empowering data-driven decision-making, so we’ve partnered with Blue Ladder Capital for their expertise in scaling mission-critical software businesses.”