Fr\u00e9deric, last January was two years since you founded Akeneo. I imagine it was a turbulent time, as with any start-up. How do you feel? <\/strong><\/p>\n Happy and proud! When we started this project at the end of 2012 with Benoit, Nicolas and Yoav (my partners), we knew that there was a real demand for an open source PIM and it was also pretty clear what we had to do to fill this niche. But there is always a certain “unexpected magic” in open source projects: seeing 15,000 installations of our software spread across the globe in a very short time, meeting customers and hearing that we are literally changing their lives (one of our customers in the US has even named a product line “Akeneo”!), discovering new stories and projects every day, all of this is an incredible experience. At the same time, it also puts us under (healthy) pressure. Two years ago, PIM was still a rather nebulous concept for many retailers and merchants (even in Germany, where the market is already much more mature). Today, things are different: PIM is now an obvious layer in almost every multi-channel strategy and merchants have also raised their expectations. This is a great opportunity for us, but also a real challenge, as it forces us to constantly innovate. <\/p>\n As you know from my previous articles on Akeneo, I think Akeneo fills a significant gap in the open source toolkit for eCommerce merchants. How do you benefit from this constellation? How dependent are you on Magento? <\/strong><\/p>\n Over the last 15 years, open source models have profoundly changed many traditional software markets. It started with CMS: Before CMS like TYPO3, WordPress, eZ Publich or Drupal came along, it was not uncommon for a company that wanted to set up a corporate website to invest hundreds of thousands of euros in the purchase and setup of an enterprise content management system. And the same upheaval happened in ECM (Alfresco or Nuxeo changed the market), in CRM (SugarCRM), in eCommerce (Magento, Oxid, Shopware, etc) and in many other areas. PIM was, so to speak, the last bastion for the “traditional” software manufacturers. And there is a strong and “urgent” demand for an open source alternative (your previous article on this was the first to highlight this issue and “validate” our statement to a certain extent<\/a>). And not just because of the costs! PIM software is middleware that needs to be connected to a variety of third-party systems (ERP, eCommerce platform, ETL, XLS sheets, …). If you have a strong community that is able to develop plug & play connectors for these third-party systems, this is an advantage over traditional providers. <\/p>\n We are very close to the Magento ecosystem. On the one hand, of course, because of Yoav. But also because of my personal background (before I founded Akeneo, I worked for Smile, a large Magento integrator in Europe). We knew that only a very small proportion of Magento merchants were already using a PIM and that most of them struggled with XLS sheets. Offering a native Magento connector was therefore a very natural step. Surprisingly, even though we are very well established with Magento merchants, we quickly discovered that the operators of Drupal Commerce, Demandware or even Hybris have very similar problems and needs. Today, 50% of our customers are not Magento merchants. <\/p>\n How many of your projects are eCommerce projects? Are there still pure print projects in the PIM area (catalogs, etc.)? <\/strong><\/p>\n Around 75% of our projects are eCommerce projects. But more and more we are seeing that print requirements are also becoming an issue in a second step. And we actually have a few “print-only” projects (paper is not dead!). But it will probably never become a significant part of our business, as eCommerce is part of our DNA. At this point I would also like to mention the great work of our friends at Naolis<\/a>. They have built a very good InDesign extension for Akeneo, which allows Akeneo users to create the layout of their print documents before exporting them to InDesign. <\/p>\n Looking at your funding, I think it’s rather low. Are you planning a new round of financing? <\/strong><\/p>\n We have raised the capital we needed (around \u20ac2 million so far) to grow while maintaining full control over the company’s strategy. Organizing outside capital is time-consuming and can be a major distraction from the essentials. We were profitable before our last financing round in September 2014, but we had the opportunity to work with a suitable VC(Alven<\/a>) and accelerate our development. We will probably look at similar opportunities in the future if we get them. But we are not actively looking for a new financing round at the moment. <\/p>\n How is business in general? How many Enterprise Editions have been sold so far? <\/strong><\/p>\n It’s going quite well in Europe. We currently have more than 35 Enterprise Edition customers (since the release 6 months ago) and this number is growing rapidly. The demand from Community Edition users who want to upgrade to Enterprise Edition is increasing all the time. With the current trend of around +1500 new Community Edition installations per month, we think this is just the beginning of the story…. <\/p>\n Are there examples where you have thrown out proprietary PIM manufacturers in pitches?<\/strong><\/p>\n You might think that open source is our main unique selling point when we have to compete against proprietary manufacturers in pitches. But that’s not the case. The main reason why our customers prefer our solution is our intuitive user interface. Mostly, however, we appeal to marketers who see Akeneo as a real alternative to their “XLS sheet hell”, even if they are already using existing PIM\/PCM software. For example, we have a customer in Switzerland who has decided to replace their Hybris PCM with Akeneo in order to gain more flexibility. This customer is still using Hybris for the eCommerce layer, but Akeneo is now their central repository for product information. <\/p>\n It looks like you give your release versions nicknames. What’s that all about? <\/strong><\/p>\n We were looking for a nickname for our first public beta and since this beta (like all beta versions) contained a few bugs, one of our developers suggested we call it “Bugs Bunny”. We liked the idea, but wanted to find a concept that we could easily extend to future versions. We then decided to name each Akeneo Community Edition after a Bugs Bunny episode… That’s why the first Beta-1 was called “A wild hare” (the very first edition of Bugs Bunny). <\/p>\n For the Enterprise Edition, we were looking for something more elegant. We simply agreed to give the versions the names of flowers that produce akenes (achenes are a type of seed<\/a>). <\/p>\n When I want to find out more about a company’s strategy, I usually look at the vacancies first. Yours show that you are planning to increase the team by 30 full-time positions in 2015. What will these people do for Akeneo? <\/strong><\/p>\n We plan to increase our team to 55 people by the end of the year. We are mainly strengthening the product team in order to deliver new features and improve the product in general. We also know that support and education are extremely important in an open source ecosystem. We are therefore investing heavily in this area so that we can support our partners and the community. <\/p>\n![\"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric](\"http:\/\/www.alainveuve.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/fred-e1428923954522.jpg\")