Qualio founder and CEO Robert Fenton. Image: Qualio
Less than a year after its last funding round, the software start-up led by Irishman Robert Fenton has raised fresh funds.
Qualio, which develops cloud-based quality management software for the life sciences sector, has raised $50m in Series B funding.
The round was led Tiger Global, with participation from Menlo Ventures and previous investors including Frontline Ventures, MHS Capital, Operator Partners, Sorenson Ventures and Storm Ventures.
Qualio was founded in Dublin in 2012 by Irishman Robert Fenton. It is now headquartered in San Francisco but still has a base in Dublin.
The company currently has more than 250 customers worldwide, with pharma, biotech, medical device and clinical research organisations using its software to manage teams’ processes and data while meeting regulatory compliance requirements.
“With Qualio, life sciences companies can safely scale and accelerate availability of life-saving products,” Fenton, who is CEO of the start-up, explained.
“Modern-day life sciences companies need state-of-the art, easy-to-use tools to address what consumers have come to expect – to be able to trust that the products we put in or on our bodies are safe and effective and will work consistently to improve health and wellbeing.”
The fresh financing will be used to bring the start-up’s software and services to more life sciences customers globally, and to grow its product and engineering teams.
Qualio said that it tripled the size of its team in 2020 and saw revenue grow by more than 260pc year on year.
To date, Qualio has raised more than $63m. Last summer, the company secured $11m in a Series A funding round led by Storm Ventures.
Tiger Global, which led the most recent investment round, is a major tech investor that counts Stripe and Dublin-based Flipdish among its bets. It recently closed a $6.7bn venture fund as it continues to pump money into start-ups.
“Qualio has proven its ability to support life sciences organisations in bringing life-saving products to market faster without jeopardising quality,” said John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global.
“Their modern, scalable and user-friendly software married with their best-in-class services represents the future of accelerated product development in the highly regulated life sciences sector.”
