UK Document Management Firm Alfresco Preparing for US IPO

According to TechNavio’s report, Global Document Management Systems Market 2012-2016, worldwide global document management market is projected to grow 13.98% over 2012-2016, driven by the increased adoption of such services by small and medium-sized companies. Here is a quick look at UK-based open platform document management solution provider, Alfresco.

Alfresco’s Offerings

Alfresco was founded in 2005 by Documentum co-founder John Newton and former Business Objects COO John Powell. Today it is a leading open source platform for enterprise content management. The company’s solutions enable organizations to service customers better and adapt to rapid market changes. Alfresco’s content platform lets users in an organization store and share documents through the cloud or behind its firewall.

The platform is also adapted to the growing demands of mobile computing and enables secure document sharing on tablet and smartphones, thus ensuring that the user has access to the content anytime and anywhere. Alfresco has also adapted its platform to integrate with social media tools, thus enabling users to share and discover content from peers the same way as they would on social media. Alfresco claims its biggest differentiator to be the capability to securely connect people, content, systems, and processes on both sides of the firewall and extending to mobile devices.

Alfresco’s platform has been built to be compatible with multiple work suites, including MS Office, Apple iWork, Adobe Creative Suite, and Google Docs. On the cloud, it has integrated with Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com. Its open source nature ensures that it is inexpensive for organizations to implement and innovation is faster.

Alfresco’s Financials

Like other cloud-based services, Alfresco’s solutions are sold as subscriptions. The basic cloud package for data storage up to 10 GB is free for individuals. Additional features such as technical support, administrative capabilities, and additional storage are sold as upgrades to this version. Alfresco has priced its cloud or on-premise products based on per user, with rates starting at $10 per user per month. It also offers a hybrid model that is available both on the cloud and on-premise and that is priced based on the number of CPUs.

The company’s solutions are used by more than 7 million business users across 75 countries to access, manage, and share more than 4 billion documents, files and processes on-premise and on the cloud. While Alfresco’s financials are not publicly known, analysts estimate the company operates at an annual revenue run rate of close to $100 million.

Alfresco has received more than $19.5 million in funding from Mayfield Fund, Accel Partners, and SAP Ventures. Recently, Alfresco hired a new CEO, Doug Dennerline, as it prepares for an IPO. In the interim, Alfresco is scouting for additional venture funding to continue its growth.