Geneva start-up SonarSource raises 412 million and becomes “quadruple unicorn” – rts.ch

Switzerland has a new unicorn. The Geneva computer company SonarSource has announced a capitalization of 4.7 billion dollars, with the arrival of new American investors. Its products enable computer coders to write more efficient and cleaner software.

On the roof of the IKEA store in Vernier (GE), the start-up no longer resembles these young shoots in search of success. It has 180 employees in Geneva, and 120 spread between France, Germany, Texas and soon Singapore.

Above all, the company specializing in computer code, which already achieved a turnover of 150 million francs, has just turned into a “unicorn” – a nickname given to technology companies valued at more than a billion dollars. A round of 412 million values ​​it at 4.7 billion dollars. “We are four times unicorn, almost five times,” smiles his very discreet boss, Olivier Gaudin.

The co-founder of the start-up in 2008, he is now targeting a billion in turnover and is considering an IPO. But not right away: “Financially, we have far exceeded the moment when we might enter the Nasdaq, for example. Our product is of very good quality. But we need to expand our structure a little more, to develop the sales and marketing aspect.

Used by NASA

Its product is not known to the general public, but is aimed at software developers. Nearly 5 million today use SonarSource products and around 300,000 businesses. Among them, IBM, Microsoft, Barclays, Alphabet or NASA.

Brand users, as a guarantee of the quality of the solutions offered in the city at the end of Lake Geneva. According to Olivier Gaudin, the performance of a software is determined by the source code: “15 years ago, nobody looked at the quality of a source code, we were content to mop up the leaks following a flood”, illustrates- he.

Poor quality source code will cause problems such as code reading difficulties, bugs or security vulnerabilities. Its products would allow computer coders to write not only more efficient software, devoid of bugs and security vulnerabilities, but also to “clean up” the defects of the past.

Savings potential

These “clean code” tools, or “clean code” in French, potentially interest a huge global market. And at the same time attracts investors. Among them, the Advent International, General Catalyst, Insight Partners and Permira Growth Opportunities funds.

Deep Nishar, director of General Catalyst, an American venture capital firm, seems convinced of his investment. “All companies in the world integrate software for the production of their goods and services”.

The market is therefore global. In a context of shortage of developers, their productivity might be increased by 30%, according to him: “A software developer spends on average nearly 60% of his time ‘debugging’ someone else’s code! C “So it’s in their obvious interest to write better code right away, for themselves and for the teams that come following. If you write good code right away, the potential savings are substantial.”

With these new investors, the youngest Swiss unicorn hopes to multiply its growth by 10. The objective is not utopian, because its market is large. It is that of the 70 million developers of computer code in a world where software is becoming increasingly important.

Pascal Jeannerat and Feriel Mestiri