San Francisco, CA – January [10], 2018 – Serent Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm focused on investing in high-growth technology and services businesses, has made a minority investment in BirchStreet Systems, the leading provider of cloud-based procure-to-pay automation software for customers in the hospitality, restaurant, and foodservice industries.
BirchStreet’s suite of solutions encompasses eProcurement, Accounts Payable Automation, Inventory Management, Recipe System Management, and Capital Projects. The software increases efficiency by streamlining many manual processes and creates a comprehensive, intelligent view of spending compliance. In doing so, BirchStreet offers value to its customers by reducing costs, simplifying and improving visibility into key business processes, enhancing control over spending decisions, and improving on-contract spend compliance. The solutions also provide customers with workflow efficiencies that allow them to optimize back-office productivity. BirchStreet’s customers, which include most of the major multinational hospitality brands and many of the largest management companies, process over $15 billion in spend across nearly 6 million purchase orders to over 200,000 suppliers annually.
“Since founding BirchStreet Systems in 2002, we have focused on providing exceptional value to our customers as one of the first to market with a truly ground-up multitenant cloud-based technology architecture. Our solutions are highly differentiated through their ability to address both direct and indirect spend categories – functionality made possible through the breadth of our product offerings and supplier network,” said Sushil Garg, founder and CEO of BirchStreet.
He continued, “As BirchStreet enters the next chapter of its growth story, we sought an investment partner who would bring domain expertise in procure-to-pay software and hospitality technology. We also sought a partner who brings to bear a broad set of resources that will help us execute on our growth strategy, while maintaining our reputation for customer value and product innovation. We feel that the alignment with Serent Capital across these dimensions could not be stronger.”
“BirchStreet is a leader and innovator in procure-to-pay. As investors, it is rare for us to encounter a business with such a strong position in its market, whose success is demonstrated by highly satisfied customers, excellent growth, and strong customer retention rates,” said Lance Fenton, Partner at Serent Capital. “We are incredibly impressed by the business that Sushil and his management team have built, and we are thrilled to partner with them to drive continued growth and success.”
Serent’s investment in BirchStreet Systems represents its sixth recent investment in the Restaurant and Hospitality Technology space— Knowland (2012), FranConnect (2014), Compeat (2015), Meeting Intelligence / HIS (2016), and Ctuit (2017).
About BirchStreet Systems
Founded in 2002, Newport Beach, CA-based BirchStreet Systems automates the business and operational process called procure-to-pay. The company offers a multi-tenant cloud solution for eProcurement, Accounts Payable Automation (3-way match automation), Inventory Control, Recipe Management and Capital Projects for businesses around the world. The SaaS solution improves visibility and control over supply chain and back-office operations. The platform and technology connects thousands of businesses in over 100 countries with a network of more than 345,000 suppliers to gain greater efficiency, increase transparency, create accountability, strengthen financial controls, and reduce compliance gaps resulting in significant business process improvements (BPIs) and real supply cost savings. For more information on BirchStreet, visit the company’s website at www.birchstreetsystems.com.
About Serent Capital
Serent Capital invests in growing businesses that have developed compelling solutions that address their customers’ needs. As those businesses grow and evolve, the opportunities and challenges that they face change with them. Principals at Serent Capital have firsthand experience at capturing those opportunities and navigating these difficulties through their experiences as CEOs, strategic advisors, and board members to successful growing businesses. By bringing its expertise and capital to bear, Serent helps growing businesses thrive. For more information on Serent Capital, visit www.serentcapital.com.