Waterloo-based Shinydocs Corp. has announced a CDN$16.25-million raise that will help the content-management company boost its sales and marketing resources.

The deal – a mix of equity and debt financing – was led by Toronto-based First Ascent Ventures and Export Development Canada.

“We are excited to support Shinydocs as they continue to scale the organization to deepen their presence in North America and reach customers in new geographies,” said Richard Black, co-founder and Managing Partner of First Ascent Ventures. “Shinydocs is well positioned to disrupt a vertical that is focused on hosting as a service rather than content management.”

Founded in 2013, Shinydocs has grown steadily over the past decade. It currently employs 86 people and plans to add another 20 by the end of 2023.

The company's software helps customers organize, search and leverage the vast amounts of digital information that most organizations generate and accumulate on a regular basis. 

“Our customers are seeing exponential growth in the volume of unstructured data held across the organization,” said Shinydocs CEO Jason Cassidy. “Yet the nature of this data makes it difficult to identify and manage, which creates operational risk, slows productivity, and limits innovation. Shinydocs enables companies to form valuable insights by accessing petabytes of content stored across the organization.”

The company said its software is used in a range of industries to help customers “make more accurate, data-driven decisions whilst significantly reducing time searching for files and improving the overall customer and employee experiences." 

Last fall, Shinydocs received a $4-million repayable contribution through the federal Jobs and Growth Fund as part of a program to help tech companies scale their businesses and create jobs.