While the shift to remote work has opened up the talent pool available to companies, it’s also introduced new burdens for businesses from a governance standpoint. Organizations are turning to technology to help streamline governance across several cross-functional teams – corporate secretaries, tax, legal, finance, and governance professionals. Kuberno, founded by veterans in the governance space, has built a cloud-enabled legal entity governance platform, Kube, that fosters collaboration and centralization. Taking an API-first approach, Kube provides a single source of truth allowing all stakeholders to develop a configurable workflow that includes automation for integrating data while maintaining security and a complete audit trail. The platform also offers a robust data insights and reporting dashboard that allows users to develop instant insights to drive operational efficiency. Since launching in the Fall of 2021, the company has built an impressive roster of clients that include the Big Four in the UK and listed companies in the FTSE 100. With this funding, they are also announcing a commercial partnership with Nasdaq that will integrate Kuberno’s platform into Nasdaq’s Governance Solutions unit.
London TechWatch caught up with Kuberno Limited CEO and Cofounder Zoe Bucknell to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the company’s total funding raised to £3.7M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Nasdaq Ventures was the sole investor in the funding round, investing £3.5M in Series A financing. In connection with the investment, Kuberno will launch a commercial partnership with Nasdaq Governance Solutions that includes a planned product integration into Nasdaq’s suite of governance solutions.
Tell us about your product or service and what inspired the start of Kuberno?
Kuberno uses technology to simplify the management of legal entity governance by easing reporting and enabling remote collaboration through its cloud-native product, Kube.
It was inspired by the pain points I had during my 20 years as a General Counsel and Company Secretary – primarily my frustration at the lack of tech available to support governance professionals. My cofounders Jay Dodd, Richard Wilson, and I had worked alongside each other, albeit in a different business, to build another tech solution – so we came together to tackle the larger challenge of entity management.
How is it different?
Kube is a market-first global entity governance platform.
It works by combining world-leading entity management functionality with a unique secretariat practice management system. This helps companies and all their stakeholders in every jurisdiction work collaboratively to make entity governance more efficient and effective. The platform automates administrative tasks, creates data insights and reports, manages documents and data, and can perform e-filings and form creation.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
Governance is an increasingly important issue for businesses of every size and in every place – the market is huge and growing. For reference, our platform is already relied upon by a range of clients, including household names within the FTSE 100; the Big Four in the UK; and global clients in the US, EMEA and APAC regions.
What’s your business model?
We are a B2B SaaS company. Beyond that, we’re very focused on leveraging strategic partnerships to support our growth and access new markets. Prior to this partnership with Nasdaq, we recently announced an integration with Insidertrack, which is an insider list management solution developed by Cytec and used by almost half of the FTSE 100.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
As a bootstrapped company, we have always run a very lean business – focusing on optimising processes and our own use of tech to make every penny work towards delivering the best outcomes for our customers. The new investment enables us to grow into new markets and accelerate the development of our product – but we will continue to do this on a lean and agile basis so we can continue to grow during the downturn and ensure we’re best placed to take advantage when the economy does eventually improve.
What was the funding process like?
The funding process has run alongside our business partnership discussions with Nasdaq – which actually came first! It has not been a typical process as we have not gone out to multiple funders. The Nasdaq teams in Ventures and the corporate side have been amazing – and I believe we have come out of the process even better placed to drive innovation in the governance technology space.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Combining the focus we needed on the day-to-day business with the time commitment required to go through the process! One of the challenges of being a lean team!
What factors about your business led your investors to write the cheque?
The investment is tied to the commercial partnership – we have very aligned values and strategies in the governance tech space. Nasdaq Governance Solutions is focused on investing in modern workflow technologies, advisory and insight that empower corporates to drive governance excellence. Kuberno complements its existing portfolio with an important workflow piece that supports the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary’s office.
The investment is tied to the commercial partnership – we have very aligned values and strategies in the governance tech space. Nasdaq Governance Solutions is focused on investing in modern workflow technologies, advisory and insight that empower corporates to drive governance excellence. Kuberno complements its existing portfolio with an important workflow piece that supports the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary’s office.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Our main milestone will be to launch into the US market, although we are also looking to nearly quadruple our team size in that time as well.
What advice can you offer companies in London that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Look at your spend and whether there are any areas where you can cut back or consolidate your spend. For instance, on tech stack – do you have tools that could do two jobs adequately? I would also look at fixed costs such as office space if you need to extend runway.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We are just commencing our scale-up journey and are up against a duopoly of established players in the UK – however, we are already being recognised as the third player in the market and with the backing of Nasdaq we are looking to expand on that reputation globally.
What is your favourite restaurant in London?
I have not really had time to visit restaurants since starting Kuberno – however, I love Black Sheep for coffee and the street food market near Mindspace on Appold Street!
