The Zhitong Finance App learned that French AI company Pigment raised 250 million US dollars in a round of financing. This company, which competes with Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, is stepping up efforts to push a well-known European startup to challenge American tech giants.
The funding will be announced on Tuesday, valuing Pigment at $2.3 billion. This round was led by Scaleup Europe Fund, with Nvidia (NVDA.US) and World Innovation Lab, a fund headquartered in the US and Japan, participating. Existing institutional investors Iconiq, IVP, and Meritech Capital also participated. Nvidia CEO Hwang In-hoon announced the investment during a visit to France last week.
Pigment co-founder and CEO Eléonore Crespo said the company also plans to bring in several Asian investors in this round to support its planned regional expansion.
Founded in 2019, Pigment develops AI-driven software to help companies predict financial conditions, quickly produce presentations, and plan operations. Like Microsoft, Pigment is trying to convince the wider office population to incorporate AI into the workflow—much harder than persuading software engineers to use AI programming tools.
According to Crespo, Pigment provides financial planning systems for Anthropic PBC and is currently seeking customers using SAP SE, ORCL.US (ORCL.US), International Business Machines (IBM.US), Anaplan Inc., and Microsoft products. AI workforce tools must be extremely easy to use, she said.
“If an AI system isn't completely designed for you from the beginning — it communicates in natural language, makes you feel comfortable, and feels like home, and all data and systems are connected — then it's hard for you to use it,” she said. “That's the gap we saw.”
French cosmetics company L'Oreal SA (L'Oreal SA) is promoting Pigment to its 95,000 employees as a compensation planning tool.
Pigment's annual recurring revenue has surpassed $100 million, double the previous year. Crespo said the company expects to double again next year.
Pigment's growth reflects Europe's broader artificial intelligence strategy. There are few cutting-edge AI model makers in Europe, but it is forming a growing ecosystem of AI application companies. The products developed by these companies may be paid to be used by companies in the legal, banking, and other industries. In particular, Pigment hopes to build AI agents (AI agents) in the next step and place them on top of the enterprise's existing ERP software, covering tasks such as accounting and human resources.
Shannee Braun, managing director of EQT and head of Scaleup Europe Fund, said that Pigment's software is very powerful in helping customers use intelligent devices to complete various planning processes, whether it is supply, sales, or staffing.
“A lot of big businesses are still doing these things in Excel, scattered and fragmented,” she said. Centralizing data processing on a unified platform “is becoming increasingly important.”