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Infrastructure Software
Max Schireson  |  July 27, 2021
Digital Transformation Includes Digital Prioritization

As we detailed in a December blog post, Faster Application Release Cycles Drive the Need for Test Automation, the pandemic has transformed the way businesses of all types think about how to reach customers more efficiently. For businesses like restaurants and storefronts, this has meant accelerating the push towards e-commerce and home delivery to make products more accessible. For many larger, Fortune 500 enterprises, the shift has spurred efforts to modernize application stacks to better manage the ever-growing need for customer data and analytics—data needed now that customers are working remotely, using more devices and interacting with an ever-growing number of software applications.

In industry jargon, Covid has accelerated “digital transformation”.

In order to satisfy these rapidly changing demands, enterprise CIOs have taken a look at the software-development lifecycle from top to bottom, starting with the way teams are organized and operated and continuing to the actual best-of-breed technology being purchased and implemented today, ranging from source code to security and feature-flagging.

In our “State of the OpenCloud” report released last year, and in our December blog post, our team highlighted current, specific bottlenecks within the software-development lifecycle (SDLC) that companies are trying to overcome, including testing and security. What we have seen is that these traditionally were functions primarily driven by activities outside the broader development organization–ranging from QA to dedicated security personas—but which are now being directly integrated into developer-tool suites. Following this broader thesis, since publishing our OpenCloud 2020 report, we have invested in Harness.io*, Styra* and others to complement existing SDLC investments in JFrog*, BridgeCrew* and Contrast*.

Within the testing market, we are excited to announce our continued involvement in Launchable* today and to welcome 645 Ventures to the investor base backing the company. Launchable serves as an intelligent control plane layered across a customer’s existing SDLC toolchain, inclusive of all underlying testing frameworks, that an enterprise may be using to provide a test-recommendation engine.

Launchable’s key insight is that there is a massive productivity loss due to bad code, resulting in $85 billion of global GDP loss, per a 2018 Stripe report. Given this dynamic, Launchable helps enterprises focus on running the tests that matter first; this prioritization can cut test cycles by up to 80%. With this framework, developer leads and engineering directors will be able to test more often, find issues earlier and accelerate development cycles. The company leads with a freemium model but has proven customers scaling to enterprise needs.

We are thrilled with Launchable’s progress since we originally invested in the company’s seed round with Unusual Ventures and are excited to continue on the journey with the team!

This material is provided for informational purposes, and it is not, and may not be relied on in any manner as, legal, tax or investment advice or as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any fund or investment vehicle managed by Battery Ventures or any other Battery entity. 

The information and data are as of the publication date unless otherwise noted.

Content obtained from third-party sources, although believed to be reliable, has not been independently verified as to its accuracy or completeness and cannot be guaranteed. Battery Ventures has no obligation to update, modify or amend the content of this post nor notify its readers in the event that any information, opinion, projection, forecast or estimate included, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate.

The information above may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or expectations. Predictions, opinions and other information discussed in this video are subject to change continually and without notice of any kind and may no longer be true after the date indicated. Battery Ventures assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update forward-looking statements.

*Denotes a Battery portfolio company. For a full list of all Battery investments, please click here.

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