Vancouver-based project management software company Axiom Labs Inc. (dba Zenhub) announced Thursday it raised $10 million in its Series A funding round led by Vancouver-based venture capital firm Yaletown Partners along with support from BMO Capital and existing investors.
The company started in 2015 by creating a platform that allowed software teams to manage projects completely within GitHub, one of the most popular code-hosting platforms, like Google Docs but used for coding. The new funding will be used to expand its project management platform beyond GitHub.
Zenhub sees an opportunity to expand its platform as an increasing number of employees and stakeholders are becoming involved in developing software and bringing it to market.
“GitHub remains a natural place for developers to work. It's often viewed as an unapproachable platform for non-technical team members and external collaborators,” read the press release. “As more and more of these non-technical stakeholders become involved in the development process, this represents a significant challenge for organizations”
Zenhub is working to solve this problem, in part through its newly announced Zenhub Issues, which was launched today. This software will enable clients, customers, and contractors to work on projects along with their technical teams without having a GitHub account.
Zenhub claims that this will not only help external collaboration but will also enhance security since non-technical employees will not have access to GitHub. The press release also says that Zenhub Issues will lead to cost savings as not as many GitHuB licenses will be required.
“Zenhub is evolving their platform at the right time to meet business’ new software development requirements,” said Paul Nashawaty, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, an IT analyst and research firm cited in Zenhub’s press release.
“Developers want to spend their time coding rather than in meetings providing updates to non-technical stakeholders … Zenhub Issues aims to provide the ability to unlock more productivity so that development teams are able to do more with the resources they have today.”
The lead funder of Zenhub's Series A funding round, Yaletown Partners, announced the closing of its $200 million Innovation Growth Fund II on Thursday, raising an additional $70 million after securing $130 million at the initial closing in August 2021.
