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As part of Vena's birthday we created a timeline for you to enjoy, check it out:
A Decade of Planning To Grow: Milestones and Highlights from Vena's First 10 Years
As we celebrate Vena's 10th birthday, it's time to look back and reflect on the growth we've accomplished so far. This is how Vena evolved from a three-founder startup in 2011 into a cloud FP&A leader with 900+ customers in 2021.
April 2011: Longtime friends Rishi Grover and George Papayiannis launch the company. They begin building the software out of George's parents' basement.
August 2011: Don Mal joins as the CEO and third co-founder. Vena is officially born!
December 2011: After building the original product, refining the go-to-market strategy and hiring some early employees, Vena brings on First Wind Energy as its first customer.
June 2012: George and the Product and Technology team launch the first version of Vena's OLAP financial database, ultimately laying the foundation for long-term growth and innovation.
October 2012: Vena moves its office to Islington and Bloor in Toronto after raising $3 million in funding from close friends and family. This also included an angel investment from a PE firm, Klass Capital.
2013 - 2015: The sales team continues to shatter its revenue and customer acquisition targets. Vena signs some huge clients including Nando's, McDonald's Canada, Santander and Kobo.
July 2014: The Product and Technology team successfully transform Vena from an on-premise application into a cloud-based SaaS solution.
July 2016: Vena secures its first major funding round, a $30 million Series A investment from Centana Growth Partners.
May 2017: Hundreds of customers and prospects gather in New Orleans for VenaNOLA, the company's first-ever user conference.
September 2017: More customers + more employees = the need for more space! Vena moves offices again to its current global headquarters at 2 Fraser Ave. in Toronto's Liberty Village.
December 2018: Vena caps off yet another record-breaking year with enhancements to the modeling, workflow, integration and data mapping features.
January 2019: JMI Equity leads a $115 million funding round as Vena continues to attract top-tier talent and grow its market share.
August 2019: Don steps down as Vena's CEO as the company begins to adopt a more targeted product-led growth strategy. SaaS veteran Hunter Madeley takes the helm as CEO as Vena begins to prepare for a period of aggressive expansion.
May 2020: The COVID-19 pandemic sparks the birth of Vena Nation week, a fully-virtual conference for the entire finance and operations community. Vena unveils Plan To Growâ„¢ shortly after, an innovative online learning hub and CPE-accredited content platform.
November 2020: Vena launches the Vena Preview--its first product-led growth initiative--and begins work on additional enhancements to drive demand for the business.
February 2021: Vena forms a partnership with the Kansas City Chiefs in order to champion digital transformation in the sports and live entertainment industry. Vena also launches pre-configured solutions for SaaS, banking, education and other key market segments.
April 2021: Vista Equity Partners leads another $300 million funding round, giving Vena the momentum it needs to continue thriving for the next decade and beyond.
May 2021: Vena's Product and Technology team prepare for major releases including Vena 365 Connect and embedded dashboarding with PowerBI.
As Senior Director of Content and Communications, Jonathan Paul leads content strategy and execution at Vena, overseeing the development of owned media and content experiences that help finance professionals fuel business health, as well as their personal and professional growth. When he's not dreaming up new ways to offer audiences value through content creation, Jonathan loves to lose himself in an immersive video game with a solid narrative, lose golf balls pretending to be good at golf and lose time dreaming about time travel.
