Software

Retool launches Workflows to go beyond the front end • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in automation service, backend automation, developers, Enterprise, low-code, retool, Software, StartupsNo Comments

Since its launch in 2017, Retool has made a name for itself by offering developers an easier way to build line-of-business apps for their internal users. Unlike the many low-code/no-code tools on the market today, Retool’s focus remains squarely on developers, despite its helpful drag-and-drop interface. Now, about half a year after announcing its $45 million funding round, the company is expanding its feature set by adding new tools for building backend workflows, too. Retool Workflows, as the company named this new feature, makes it easy for developers to create automated processes like cron jobs, custom alerts and standard extract, transform, load (ETL) tasks, using a similar graphical interface as the frontend tool, all while adding a lot more flexibility than tools like Zapier. “Some people try to put us in the no code-space or something. You’ll never hear us ever saying that,” Retool CEO and co-founder David Hsu told me. “The reason for that is we actually don’t believe in it really. I think if you look at tools like for example Airtable or Zapier or stuff like that, we think that’s really great if you have a simple use case or a medium-sized use case — it’s great for that. But if you want to build a really advanced use case, like an internal tool that an Amazon might build, for example, then Zapier will be able to get you 50% there very quickly, but the remaining 50% basically becomes impossible.” Image Credits: Retool Instead of going for a no-code approach, the Retool team always built its service for developers first. “We believe in the power of code,” said Hsu. He also noted that the trend he sees is that more and more people now learn how to code and that this is the trend he wants to bet on — not dumbing down the coding experience. Workflows fits right in here, he argues, because it’s very hard to build a low-code/no-code tool that allows you to build complex workflows without quickly hitting the limitations of what these tools can do without resorting to writing custom code (though we’ve seen quite a few companies try). Hsu noted that a lot of customers were already hacking the Retool app to make some of these capabilities work for them. But instead of firing off a cron job, they would write a script that would automatically click a button in a custom app at a certain time to kick off a workflow, for example (which is apparently what one of Retool’s customers did). “Developers need the flexibility of code. They want a toolset that speeds up work withoutnarrowing their options,” said Jamie Cuffe, Product Lead, Retool. “Retool Workflows aims to abstract away the tedious parts of building automations from scratch while preserving the ability to write code to solve the problem.” The Retool team argues that building regular cron jobs, with their arcane format, is both time consuming and error prone — and the final result is hard to maintain and debug. “I really think there is no developer-focused workflows product that I’m aware of. That is why we’re launching this,” said Hsu. In addition to running scripts at regular intervals, Retool Workflows can also use webhooks for a more event-driven approach. That means it could be used for alerting, in addition to more traditional lightweight ETL applications. Indeed, Hsu said that most users in the Workflows beta got started with alerting and notifications and then transitioned to ETL use cases over time. It’s worth noting that this isn’t so much an enterprise integration tool for moving data between applications but still squarely focused on getting this data into Retool-based line-of-business applications. “We needed an efficient way to translate product data in our warehouse into timely, insightfulreporting in Slack,” said Joel McLean, director of product growth at RE/MAX. “With Retool Workflows, my team can easily configure our resources in one place and focus only on writing the logic unique to our business.” The new service will be priced based on data throughput. Each Retool plan, including the free one, will come with 1GB of Workflows data for free, with overages starting at $50/GB. For now, Workflows is only available as a hosted service, but the team is already working on an on-prem version. That’s how many of Retool’s customers are already using its app building tool, including the likes of Stripe, Brex, Coinbase and Plaid, so it only makes sense for the company to do the same for Workflows.

Colorado-based SpringTime Ventures pivots its focus for new $25 million fund

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in emerging manager, Software, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

There are a lot of changes afoot for SpringTime Ventures as it looks to deploy its freshly closed second fund. For one, the Denver-based firm is pivoting away from its original focus on its home state of Colorado, despite being the only local fund in two of the state’s 10 unicorn companies. It’s also now able to expand its team thanks to raising three times as much money for Fund II, giving SpringTime enough cash on hand to allow its partners to finally pay themselves a real salary. So far, these changes have proved positive. SpringTime is announcing a $25 million second fund to cut checks ranging from $400,000 to $600,000 into U.S.-based seed-stage software companies. The fund was raised from an LP base of 120 entities that largely consisted of high-net-worth individuals. This latest fund allows SpringTime managing partners Matt Blomstedt and Rich Maloy to ditch their consulting work to focus on investing full-time, and actually get paid for doing so, overcoming a financial hurdle that plagues many first-time fund managers but isn’t spoken about often. The firm was also able to add a principal and two additional partners. The new pool of capital will be invested across startups in sectors including fintech, insurtech, healthcare, logistics and supply chain. While Fund I largely was deployed into companies across these same sectors, Fund II’s thesis represents a deviation from where the firm first focused: filling a funding void for startups in Colorado. Blomstedt told ZebethMedia that he originally got the idea for SpringTime after moving to Colorado in 2015 after a career in the energy business in Texas. He started attending happy hours to get to know people in his new community and met a bunch of startup founders who all shared the same problem. Blomstedt saw an opportunity. “At the time, there just wasn’t a dedicated seed fund really in Colorado and the consistent theme was [local founders] were having to go to the coast or maybe to Austin, Texas, or Chicago to raise seed capital,” Blomstedt said. “I started to become pretty convicted in kind of an opportunity and the need for a seed fund in Colorado.” He decided to raise a proof-of-concept fund to back these startups. The first fund was a slog to raise, he said. He garnered $8 million, which the firm invested in 35 companies including future Colorado unicorns SonderMind (telehealth) and Veho (logistics). While the fund isn’t sticking to its original thesis of backing companies in the Centennial State, Blomstedt said that most of their existing portfolio company would fall under this new strategy anyway. The above two examples back that up. Plus, he thinks this distinction will help them better leverage their LP network — 77% of Fund I’s LPs reupped for the new approach. “They send deal flow or they help us evaluate deals, so we started just kind of gravitating toward those industries,” Blomstedt said. “It also just made us better; we can make quicker, sound decisions in a much shorter period of time by having this focus and this network around us.” He added that they can be a value add later to the firm’s portfolio companies. SpringTime also brought on a handful of operating partners for Fund II for the same reason. Now, after raising across two very different market conditions — Blomstedt said it took about the same time to raise the first $22 million and the final couple million — it’s time to deploy.