Why we invested in Daupler

The other day, John Bertand, the CEO of Daupler, reminded me of the first time we met. It was at AWWA’s annual conference in 2019. I sauntered up to his table and struck up the usual “oh cool, so what’s this?” conversation. I asked him if he had been part of an accelerator program and he said “Techstars” and I, running the Accelerator at Imagine H2O at the time, said, “Well you chose the wrong one.”

As cringingly awful as that is, I was also wrong, because John and his co-founder Ryan are quietly (soon to be not-so-quietly) building one of the most impressive companies I’ve seen. They were serving 55 customers across 24 states within two years of going live. They solve deeply complex data, logistics and customer service problems for water utilities small and large - and do so scalably. During the Big Freeze in March, they automated the response to more than 15,000 events without skipping a beat. We were delighted and grateful to be selected to lead their Series A, even before we had completed the first close of our Fund. Here’s why we did it. 

The right leaders posting the right metrics

John is a water engineer. Ryan (CTO) is a Mathematics PhD who has built the system from the ground up. Both are self taught in key ways. Both have learned key lessons on the way to this round of financing. They are intelligent, humble, thoughtful people who are on a mission to organize and make actionable the exploding universe of real-time data around critical services. But at the Series A it’s not enough. They have a more than serviceable recurring revenue stream, but their net revenue retention (the rate of increase of the size of an account over the prior year - basically a core indicator of the degree to which a product solves a problem) is exceptional. At the time of investment it was 233%. Last month it was 255%. Excellent is 130%. 

Solving the right problem first

We raised our eyebrows when we saw how little marketing Daupler had done. Outbound email was it. But from that had grown this exceptional customer base, extraordinarily fast. We’ll get on to this below, but Daupler’s customers really like this product. John and Ryan had built something that worked brilliantly, totally solving their customers’ problem. You absolutely want it to be this way round. All the compelling content for their new VP of Marketing is in place from testimonials to case studies to cost-effectiveness data. Many companies fake it until they make it (or not). Daupler built the system, and now can sell it in the same straightforward manner. That’s tremendously compelling, especially against the backdrop of the metrics they’re already clocking. 

Hilarious customer feedback

Daupler solves what is invariably a pretty tough but necessary function for a utility. They automate the process of receiving communications from the customer/stakeholder network, categorizing and prioritizing that information, assigning the work order to the relevant team, communicating the progress against that work order back to not only the customer but also legal, HR, and the team manager, logging completion of the world to end functionality, scalably. Two of their customers said, independently of each other, that if they could, they would put their life savings in the company. It was that powerful for them and their teams, and they couldn’t see why every municipal team, from drinking water to power to road management wouldn’t want it once they knew about it. 

Exceptional process management

SaaS businesses take discipline, and a clear understanding of costs, and time. Daupler has exceptional discipline around commercial execution unusually early. There is of course work to do, but the degree of visibility John has into the operations of the business, and the advantage that gives him in terms of being able to fly the plane as they ramp up their sales operations bodes very well for the future. 

Daupler - thanks for having us along for the ride, as you build the service that will allow everyone with a network of physical assets, from SFPUC to PG&E to Verizon to Amtrak, to monitor and maintain them efficiently and effectively, giving their customers an amazing experience in the process. Watch this space...