The company’s latest investment of $70 million was led by Goldman Sachs Private Capital and follows a $40 million investment round last September.
But the company’s trajectory wasn’t always so certain. Schroer founded the company with his wife, Karen Schroer, in 2000, just before the dot-com collapse. The company grew slowly, funding itself largely through its own sales before it attracted a few rounds of venture funding, starting in 2003.
Aras had a roster of mid-size clients at that point, but Schroer said the company needed to distinguish itself if it was going to succeed in a crowded market. So he decided on a new business model, essentially giving its open-source software away for free and charging money to support and adapt it to clients’ specific needs.
That decision was going to mean slower growth, Schroer said. He said his venture investors were not willing to wait around, so he made the painful decision to buy them out. (Kaiser says Greylock is willing to be patient with companies that have good plans.) The company, which had grown to about 50 employees, shed all but about a dozen.
“I think Peter knew that he wasn’t getting traction trying to compete in the existing playing field, and in order to survive, he needed to do something different,’’ said Tom Gill…
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