Cloud Elements on growing up, moving out, and spending $3.1M

by Emerson Dameron
October 30, 2014

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In June, Cloud Elements pulled down $3.1 million in a funding round led by Grotech Ventures, Icon Venture Partners, and Galvanize Partners. The Denver tech company has been using that cash influx to continue its growth.

[ibimage==30598==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-right]For starters, it's expanding its team, which currently stands at 35 “plus a handful of office dogs,” said Hannah Shain, head of marketing at Cloud Elements. Having outgrown its old space at Galvanize, the company moved into new offices at INDUSTRY Denver in the wake of its windfall.

It is not taking its power in the highly competitive space for granted. “We’re focused on building and investing in a repeatable go-to-market model for our product,” said Shain. “This means scaling our sales and marketing plans, placing a lot of strategy behind an inbound model and refining pricing model. Lots more product would take us in the right direction, but unless we have the front line army armed and ready, we won’t scale.”

And along with all that pressure, Cloud Elements has to maintain its reputation as a fun-loving company.

Founded in 2012, Cloud Elements sells and API integration service that allows app developers to easily connect to a range of cloud services such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Quickbooks. Developers and consumers demand much more from the cloud than they did even three years ago. “We’re uniquely positioned to place responsibility of creating a cooperative app on the shoulders of the SaaS application,” Shain said. “Traditionally, the burden is placed on the end user, or the company that buys all the technologies. We believe that today’s consumers and market trends expect technologies to just work together. If they don’t integrate, or they don’t work, then the buyers will walk away.”

[ibimage==30599==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-left]Shain said the Cloud Elements team is fortunately excited about the challenge. “As a consumer, I’m most excited about the trend of connected things. I love it when things, from iPhone apps, to glasses, to cars, and the like, really cooperate. I love being able to ask Siri what song I’m listening to, through Shazaam, and then instantly add it to my personal iTunes. When apps become cooperative apps, working seamlessly together — it’s just magical.”

Cloud Elements also considers itself lucky to be part of the Denver/Boulder tech boom happening now. “I travel to Boston and the Bay area a lot,” said Shain. “I’m always impressed by how much we’re accelerating as a local community in Colorado. We have world-class shared work spaces like Galvanize and INDUSTRY to help young companies thrive. They bring together brilliant minds all under one roof, creating productive collisions, or people bumping into each in the halls and sharing ideas, mutually improving each other’s business opportunities.

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