Coupa

Technology

Coupa’s Cloud Spend Optimization SaaS product manages indirect purchases, invoices and expenses in real-time. Built on Coupa’s cloud architecture, it provides executive dashboards, alerts, expense management and real-time benchmarking into a single user interface. This spend optimization software suite focuses on three core spend areas including procurement, accounts payable, and expense management.

Coupa is cloud-based and built on Amazon Web Services infrastructure. In 2007, the company launched a SaaS (Software-as-a-service) product called Coupa On Demand for SMBs (small and midsize businesses). This platform uses Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud Web services (EC2).

Coupa’s software is based on the Ruby on Rails (RoR) platform. With RoR, Coupa developed software that helps companies to better monitor costs with less implementation time and employee training In 2006, its first free open-source product, Coupa Express, was built using RoR. Coupa's application can be accessed by any user via their mobile device browser.

In November 2011, Coupa released its first spend analysis product called Coupa Spend Optimizer. According to Coupa, this product provides spending insight to employees in both the procurement and finance sectors, with its easy-to-use interface. Also, users have access to data from other platforms, like ERP or HR systems, so they have a broader understanding of spend across their companies.

In August 2012, Coupa added an application called Coupa Contracts to its software suite. Companies can use the contracts repository to access their approved contracts and to leverage their negotiated pricing at the time of purchasing.

In May 2013, Coupa introduced applications Coupa Sourcing and Coupa Catalogs. The former makes it easier for companies to run sourcing events with suppliers to save money. With Coupa Catalogs, companies are able to use Coupa’s software platform as a shopping and catalog management front end to their ERP-based procurement system.

In April 2014, Coupa introduced Coupa Inventory which provides all employees in an organization real-time visibility into inventory availability while they are ordering, thus reducing wasteful spending.

In October 2014, Coupa announced an update to its applications, which includes new features to optimize spend and supply chain management in the enterprise.

Misappropriation of trade secrets

In May 2014, Ariba, a unit of SAP and a competitor of Coupa, filed a lawsuit alleging that Coupa misappropriated Ariba trade secrets. On September 24, 2015, the parties settled the lawsuit. Coupa acknowledged its possession of Ariba information and is required to abide by certain procedures to prevent any misappropriation in the future. Coupa will pay Ariba an undisclosed amount.

Customers and Partners

As of November 2014, Coupa indicated it had 450+ customers worldwide in 40 countries and in 150 currencies, including Concentrix, Coca-Cola Consolidated, Adidas, Subway, Armstrong, Sears, Graham Packaging, BNP Paribas, TD Bank Salesforce.com, and Rent-A-Center. In 2011, Coupa started working with the Independent Purchasing Cooperative (IPC) of Subway, to help its franchises in 98 countries with its cost management. Salesforce.com has its sales managers use Coupa to monitor travel expenses and sales outcomes. Rent-a-Center chose Coupa because the e-procurement product has an Amazon-like interface, which is easy for employees to use.

In October 2014, Coupa and NetSuite (NYSE: N) announced a strategic partnership to jointly market the Coupa Cloud Procurement and Expense Management SuiteApp built for NetSuite.

History

Dave Stephens and Noah Eisner founded Coupa in 2006. Stephens and Eisner previously worked at Oracle (enterprise procurement applications). Rob Bernshteyn took over as Coupa's CEO in February 2009, after serving as Vice President of Global Product Marketing and Management at SuccessFactors, Inc. Since then, the company has reported 26 consecutive quarters of subscription revenue growth.

In 2011, Coupa was named a Cool Vendor in Procurement and Sourcing by Gartner, which cited Coupa’s solution usability. In 2014, The Forrester Wave named Coupa a market leader. Coupa was also positioned in the Leaders quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites for Indirect Procurement in March 2015.

Former Yahoo CEO and PayPal president Scott Thompson joined the company’s board of directors in April 2013. The company expanded globally in 2014, announcing new operations in Dublin, Ireland. Coupa's other international operations include its offices in Australia and several EMEA and Asia Pacific locations. Coupa expanded its leadership and governance in 2014 with the hiring of Tara Ryan as the company's CMO and the appointment of Roger Siboni as a new member of the company's Board of Directors.

In 2015, Coupa appointed Todd Ford as CFO. In February 2015, Coupa acquired the assets of ZenPurchase, an enterprise procurement software company. In July 2015, Coupa acquired InvoiceSmash, an e-invoicing vendor, and TripScanner, an open booking vendor. In January 2016, Coupa acquired Contractually, a cloud-based contract management solution.