8base was founded in 2017 by Albert Santalo with one goal: democratize software development and solve the developer deficit problem.
Prior to 8base, Albert served as a computer engineer and management consultant in IT strategy and transformation, where he witnessed first-hand the struggles large companies’ face due to legacy technology and outdated processes.
Today the Miami based startup has more than more than 50 employees, distributed across the greater Miami area and St. Petersburg, Russia. The company has helped clients such as Livo, Leadvolt, and Photag design and build web applications through its intuitive software tools. The company plans to offer the same low-code modules designed for back-end functions to front-end projects in the near future.
“I wanted to bring a platform or a set of tools to life that would make the founder's journey a lot easier,” said Albert Santalo, CEO and Founder of 8base.
Understanding the opportunity
The United States is expected to have a shortage of 1.2 million developers by 2026 – 8base tackles the developer deficit problem head on.
The Problem:
Building SaaS products is hard. Companies can’t hire fast enough so they’re forced to use their existing technical talent for bigger initiatives while still tasking them with legacy projects.
The Solution:
8base helps companies build web applications faster with its powerful low-code development platform.
8base’s software allows both technical and non-technical founders to ship market-ready products without having to invest heavily in a development team. In addition to its low-code backend-as-a-service (BaaS) offering, 8base also doubles as a developer marketplace—helping founders augment their internal development team with external contractors.
Software development shouldn’t have to be painful. 8Base enables startup founders to go-to-market quicker with its low-code development platform and app builder.
Bolstering the warchest
2021 was a year of incredible growth for 8base. Both large and small companies were developing applications using 8base’s robust technology while simultaneously bolstering their team’s output with 8base’s custom software development services.
To make the most of this opportunity, Albert decided to raise venture capital to accelerate the company’s growth.
However, securing venture capital was an incredibly time consuming process. Closing a funding round would’ve taken at least 12-16 weeks – much too long for a founder focused on actively building a growing business.
Other factors like long customer payment terms, which prevented rapid reinvestment into sales and marketing, also played a role. It was critical for Albert to find a flexible financing partner who could help alleviate his company’s working capital constraints as they worked diligently to close their first round.
Finding the right financing provider
The company’s strong financials meant that it could consider financing options beyond equity capital. Taking on short term non dilutive credit was appealing to Albert because he had a clear understanding of how 8base was going to deploy the growth capital and generate returns before needing to pay it back.
Beyond providing flexibility, he wanted to find a partner whose structure was lightweight and didn't come with restrictive covenants or expensive warrants.
That's where funding from Arc came in.
“At 8Base we focus extensively on 10x. 10xing our output and creating tools to magnify existing developer’s capabilities by 10 times,” Albert says. “Arc truly is a 10x partner and critical to our success.”
8base requested its initial Arc Advance in November 2021. In less than 24 hours the company was approved for over $600k in financing. With a working capital facility secured, Albert could devote his attention towards attracting the right investors for 8base’s Series A, signing a favorable term sheet, and planning its next stage of growth.
Moving beyond financing
Arc’s partnership with 8base goes beyond financing. In addition to accelerating their growth with financing through Arc Advance, Albert and his team also decided to run their day to day operations out of Arc's primary account, Treasury. Treasury’s intuitive user interface and monthly yield payout were a big hit with 8base’s lean finance team.
“Our only regret with Arc is that we didn’t bank with them sooner,” said Daniel Quezada, 8bases’s VP of Finance. “Not only is the product straightforward to use – we’ve been able to hire a full-time employee using the meaningful yield we’ve generated from Arc's startup bank account.”
Conclusion
With the close of their oversubscribed Series A led by Foundry Group in April 2022, 8base is positioned to dominate the low-code software development space. 8base will use its newly raised funds to continue the rapid expansion of its product capabilities while ramping up hiring for its go-to-market team.
The company will continue to empower the more than 10,000 developers on the 8base platform with the launch of 8base Home and the introduction of Projects – aimed at unifying backend and frontend efforts into a full-stack entity.
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