Following its Series A round led by New York-based FirstMark Capital earlier this year, Sastrify continues to expand and capture new markets. The fast-growing SaaS procurement company has been a strong force in Europe since first launching in mid-2020, and is positioned to expand their services in the US, already serving leading US clients such as Capchase, a non-dilutive financing provider to SaaS companies.
A big part of Sastrify's US expansion comes down to hiring the right people, with the right set of skills, at the right time.
“As a fully distributed company, we knew early on how important securing top talent would be for our continued growth. In today's turbulent times, our customers need us more than ever to govern their SaaS cost, and we can only achieve that by hiring the most dedicated and experienced people around the globe,” explains Sastrify co-founder, Sven Lackinger.
Coinciding with Sastrify's US expansion, it's welcomed Charlie Weijer as Global VP of Sales. Weijer started working in technology in 1998 and has built teams for over a decade. His first foray into cloud technology and SaaS came in 2011, when he joined the team at Salesforce. A few years later, he signed on as one of DocuSign's first hires in their Dublin office. Over the next six years, Weijer helped DocuSign grow from ten employees to 1,000 across Europe.
“When I was approached for the role at Sastrify, it was like something clicked,” Weijer explains. “I've been leading sales for a long time, and spend a lot of time coaching my sales teams on how to work effectively with procurement, and how to make sure that we bring everybody along in the decision-making process,” he adds.
The premise of Sastrify inspired Weijer because it meets the major needs of any company's procurement functions – namely, making their lives easier and their processes more efficient, all while saving our customers a lot of money on their existing and future SaaS investments.
Other key hires include two-time author Sarah Brown as VP of Marketing and Stephen Kerner, Esq. as Director of Sales, North America. Brown joined Sastrify at the start of the year and has played a key role in building the global go-to-market team. Kerner began his career as an attorney and has since been instrumental in sales and lead generation for companies such as Bloomberg and WeWork.
From Weijer's lens, the future of Sastrify looks bright. “We're about 100 people now; we're going to grow and keep growing at an accelerated rate,” he says, further adding that with co-founders, Sven Lackinger and Maximilian Messing, the company is in good hands. “There's a vision and a humility and a passion with these two founders, and that got me even more excited. Not only do we have a strong platform and a strong value proposition we also have a very strong and experienced leadership team.”
About Sastrify
Sastrify was founded in Summer 2020 by serial entrepreneurs Maximilian Messing and Sven Lackinger in Cologne, Germany. Sastrify supports CTOs and CFOs as well as their teams in buying and renewing SaaS subscriptions. They can focus on what matters while Sastrify saves them time and money by applying best practices in SaaS buying and using a dedicated procurement team that benefits from a large database of benchmarks. More information can be found on sastrify.com and @sastrify.
About FirstMark Capital
FirstMark Capital is an early stage venture capital firm based in New York City. Our mission is to partner with exceptional entrepreneurs who are changing the world by solving meaningful problems. We have built a deeply engaged community among the extraordinary teams in our network to spread ideas and opportunities. We are privileged to work alongside the founders of remarkable businesses like Pinterest, Shopify, Riot Games, InVision, Airbnb, and dozens more. Visit us in New York City or online at firstmarkcap.com and @firstmarkcap.
About HV Capital
Since 2000, HV Capital has invested in Internet and technology companies through various generations of funds and is one of the most successful and financially strongest early-stage and growth investors in Europe. HV Capital has already invested in around 200 companies, including Zalando, Delivery Hero, FlixMobility, Depop and SumUp. The total of all HV Funds amounts to €1.7 billion. The company supports startups with capital between €500,000 and €50 million. This makes HV Capital one of the few venture capitalists in Europe that can finance startups through all growth phases. Learn more at hvcapital.com and @hvcapital.
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