Consultant marketplace Catalant raises $35 million in new funding

Catalant Technologies, a Boston-headquartered consultant matching firm, has closed a $35 million investment led by private equity and venture capital firm Morningside Group.

The investment follows a $35 million Series E funding round in 2020 and a $41 million Series D funding round in 2017. Catalant’s total funding is now over $100 million.

Morningside joins a list of investors that includes Anheuser-Busch InBev’s ZX Ventures, Highland Capital, General Catalyst, Salesforce Ventures, and Mark Cuban.

Catalant launched in 2013 as HourlyNerd, an online marketplace for independent consultants. The firm subsequently rebranded to Catalant and expanded to offer software and services for work planning, resource management, and insights and reporting. The company in 2020 launched an SaaS platform to help organizations better manage their strategic project portfolios.

Catalant’s marketplace today boasts more than 70,000 experts and 1,000 boutique consultancies. Its clients include more than 35% of the Fortune 1000.

“The quality of the experts on Catalant’s platform, the speed at which we can find the right person, and the results we’ve achieved have been spectacular — with more flexibility and at a lower cost than with traditional consulting firms,” Raj Ratnakar, chief strategy officer of DuPont, said. “I’ve been a proponent of this model for a decade and Catalant is by far the best marketplace I’ve worked with.”

The firm says the new investment will help it build on increasing demand for its services. Catalant says it saw record returns in the second half of 2020, as demand grew for freelancers in supply chain, corporate strategy, digital marketing, data analytics, and program and project management.

Freelance marketplaces overall had a strong second half, with Upwork and Fiverr seeing their earnings beat expectations in late 2020 on the back of high demand.

Organizations will often select a consultant marketplace if they want save money over a traditional consulting firm and fill skill gaps quickly. Catalant says customers can generally find and access qualified freelancers within a day.

“It’s no secret the consulting industry is ripe for disruption,” said Catalant CEO and co-founder Pat Petitti. “2020 accelerated trends we’ve seen for the past five years, as technology allows companies to connect with the best talent faster and more cost-efficiently than ever.”