Working in 100 degrees below zero in the Antarctic decades ago taught Mavenlink Inc. Chief Executive Ray Grainger how to be adaptable.
“You can’t leave—you’ve got to be resourceful,” Grainger said about spending months at the southern end of the world. “You can’t just go down to Home Depot and get tools.”
That lesson has helped him build his 11-year-old company that makes software for service companies to streamline workflow. Mavenlink has raised about $110 million in equity capital so far, and is looking for revenue growth in the 40% to 50% range this year.
Grainger’s an “explorer at heart,” according to Mavenlink’s website. He proved that with two trips between 1979 and 1981 to the Antarctic with the National Science Foundation. Those trips “provided for a lot creativity and adaptability,” the company co-founder told the Business Journal last week.
“That type of behavior has served me well throughout my entire career, certainly in this journey with Mavenlink,” according to Grainger.
His persistence was rewarded in a much warmer climate on Sept. 25 when he won a Business Journal Innovator of the Year award in front of an audience of more than 400 at Hotel Irvine (see other profiles, pages 4, 6, and 8).
Tough Sledding in 2008
A graduate of Harvey Mudd College, he earned a Bachelor of Science with distinction in engineering, Grainger’s background includes a 17-year stint at Accenture Partners, where he rose to global managing partner, and executive vice president of global services at InQuira, a provider of service management software that was acquired by Oracle in 2011.
Grainger co-founded Mavenlink in 2008 along with Roger Neel, the current chief technology officer, and Sean Crafts, the current chief growth officer.
The company began with what Grainger calls “an enthusiasm, a passion” that turned into an “almost life-changing experience.”
Then the fledgling company hit some low points—almost euphemistically called a “trough”—when the Great Recession hit right afterward.
“The markets were cratering and we had already left our jobs,” Grainger said. “That trough for us wasn’t a gradual trough, it was immediate. We were quite nervous. We just held steadfast in that we believed in our idea.”
Fortunately, the company already had its seed money “prior to the crash,” the CEO said, so surviving meant practically hoarding the cash it had, including dashing around to various banks opening up various accounts so they were within government-insured maximum limits.
“We were unable to raise venture capital during that period,” said Grainger, adding that at the time he was working with primarily a concept. “We didn’t have customers. We didn’t really have much product yet.”
“We just had to hunker down” as the company was building a “really great product,” Grainger said.
During that trough period of 2009 to 2011, he and his partners had to invest a lot more of their own capital than anticipated before things started to improve in 2011.
While things were tight during the lean years, Grainger said, “I didn’t spend myself into a hole I couldn’t get out of.”
So, no cashing in the 401(k) and no mortgaging the house to fund the startup, especially with two sons still in high school.
Series E
Mavenlink in April secured a $48 million Series E funding round co-led by two prior investors, Newport Beach-based private equity firm Carrick Capital Partners and Goldman Sachs Growth Equity.
“We’ve been impressed with the Mavenlink team since the early days,” said Carrick co-founder and Managing Director Jim Madden when the round was announced.
Madden sits on the board along with Mark Midle, who leads technology investments for Goldman Sachs Growth Equity; Klaus Besier, a former top executive at SAP Americas; and Richard Campione, the chief product officer at Splunk, a Silicon Valley data provider with a $17.9 billion market cap.
Mavenlink, headquartered in the Irvine Discovery Park, now boasts 320 employees companywide with 180 of them in Orange County. Mavenlink expects to hire about 100 people this year, while declining to provide revenue figures. Carrick typically invests in companies with $20 million to $100 million in annual revenue.
Based on OC employees, Mavenlink was the 16th-largest software maker in OC through July, according to Business Journal data. It now has offices and outposts in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Boston, London, the Australian city of Melbourne and Cebu City in the Philippines, in addition to Irvine.
What about going public?
“It’s always an option,” Grainger said last week.
The company focuses on helping services companies improve their operations. The company’s software allows services businesses and teams to improve business performance by optimizing resources, manage finances, track projects, and communicate with one another.
Mavenlink’s offerings also include integration with popular third-party services such as Google apps and Salesforce. New areas of investment include resource staffing automation, mobility, and machine learning, all designed to allow businesses to operate as if they had limitless capacity, Grainger said.
Mavenlink has paying users from almost 3,000 clients that include big names such as Salesforce, Genpact and Cornerstone OnDemand. He said the number of users of the product is in the “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people” in more than 100 countries.
Likes OC Support
Grainger’s pair of journeys to the frozen south earned him the congressional Antarctica Service Medal. Since 2005, he has served on the board of trustees for Harvey Mudd College.
The Innovator of the Year award recipient also has some nice words for his local business neighbors and supporters, including Aliso Viejo-based medical and tech accelerator OCTANe, Irvine Co., and investor Carrick Capital.
“It’s just been a nice experience to see the Orange County community having jumped in and supported us,” the Irvine resident said.
