Ryan Wong co-founded Visier in Vancouver in 2010 with John Schwarz and Jan Schwarz. The first team worked part time from a townhouse of about 1,500 sq ft with no air conditioning. Servers sat on the kitchen counter and up to 13 people worked inside.
Before a visit from executives of a large company, the team cleared away the takeout containers and used the upstairs bedroom as the boardroom. Foundation Capital led a Series A of about $6 million in 2011, and the first customers went live late that year. The first anchor customer was Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
In early 2012 Visier released its own in-memory analytics engine, built from scratch. More rounds followed: about $15 million in 2013, about $25 million in 2014 and about $43 million in 2017.
In June 2021 Visier announced a $125 million Series E led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, at a valuation above $1 billion. Wong called the unicorn label exciting but stressful. Total funding reached about $219.5 million. Visier competes with Workday, SAP SuccessFactors and Oracle HCM.