After bootstrapping for five years, Instruqt raises a €15M Series A from Blossom Capital

Netherlands-based Instruqt has a product allowing companies to more easily test how new software would run inside their organization. After bootstrapping its way to growth, it has now raised €15 million in a Series A round led entirely by Blossom Capital.

It’s much easier to sell a software product into a company if they can see how it will run inside the organization in a live manner. So some startups have appeared where they run their SaaS product inside a sort of sandbox, so that the client company can see how it might work, without having to be fully deployed. Instead of brow-beating buyers why they should purchase their products, the platform puts buyers in the driver’s seat to experience a product hands-on. This mean the client gets a working demo of the product, without needing to commit a lot of time and resources, or perhaps even signing a contract. That’s a much more powerful way of selling a product compared to a theoretical “demo” which might look and sound good, but may end up being a a total disaster in practice. Some examples of companies offering products in this area are CloudShare, Skillshare and ReadyTech.

Founded in 2018, Instruqt says it is in use by companies such as RedHat, MongoDB, Datadog and HashiCorp. They use it to build so-called “self-service demos” and free test drives for prospects.

The company is led by CEO Coert Baart alongside co-founder and CTO Adé Mochtar. Baart was previously co-founder of XebiaLabs, which was sold in 2020 to TPG Capital for an undisclosed amount.

Baart said in a statement: “Having been bootstrapped since day one, it was always going to take a VC who truly understood our vision for us to take outside capital.”

“Instruqt hits the sweet spot for buyers and sellers alike when it comes to tackling the key challenges faced in all sizes and sectors of business,” added Ophelia Brown, founder and managing partner at Blossom Capital.