On October 21, 2026, the Paris company, co-founded by Eléonore Crespo, raised a $250 million Series E at a $2.3 billion valuation, per The Next Web. The round was led by the Scaleup Europe Fund, a vehicle managed by EQT and backed by the European Commission, and Nvidia plans to invest too.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Co-founder | Eléonore Crespo |
| Other co-founder | Romain Niccoli, co-founder of Criteo |
| Company | Pigment, Paris; founded 2019 |
| What it sells | AI software for business planning: budgets, sales targets, hiring |
| Latest round | $250 million Series E, October 21, 2026 |
| Valuation | $2.3 billion |
| Lead investor | Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT |
| Annual recurring revenue | Passed $100 million earlier in 2026, per The Next Web |
A physicist in finance
Crespo’s path into software ran through science and finance. The ENS Paris-Saclay alumni profile says she studied physics there (class of 2008) and took a master’s at École des Mines in 2010, then worked at Google before co-founding Pigment with Romain Niccoli, whose earlier company, Criteo, had gone public. She called Criteo’s IPO “a real accelerator for the project.”
The company’s name is her metaphor for what it does: “Just like a painting composed of many pigments that makes sense when seen from afar,” she told the alumni magazine. Pigment pulls a company’s numbers into one model that finance, sales and HR teams plan from, instead of a web of spreadsheets.
Three rounds, three steps up
Pigment raised an $88 million Series C in 2023 and, about ten months later, a $145 million Series D in April 2024 led by ICONIQ Growth, at a valuation above $1 billion. Finyear reported $393 million raised in total at that point, and that the company had tripled its annual recurring revenue in the previous year.
The Series E more than doubles the valuation. World Innovation Lab joined as a new investor, and Greenoaks, ICONIQ, IVP and Meritech came back. Nvidia’s stake wasn’t final and its size wasn’t disclosed. Adding the new round to Finyear’s 2024 total puts Pigment’s lifetime funding at roughly $643 million, our sum of the two reported figures.
What the money is for
Most of it goes to research and engineering, per The Next Web: Graphite, the computing engine under the product, and AI agents that run whole planning tasks end to end. Pigment says 85% of new metrics on the platform are already created by an AI agent rather than a person. Its customers include Danone, DirecTV, Siemens, Snowflake, Unilever, Anthropic and ElevenLabs, and L’Oréal is moving salary planning for more than 95,000 employees onto it.
“Enterprise planning will change more in the next few years than it has in the last thirty,” Crespo and Niccoli said. EQT managing director Shannee Braun put the investment case more simply: “Eléonore and Romain have built a global category leader from Paris.”
Where she fits
Crespo got from founding to a $2.3 billion valuation in seven years. The founders she sits beside on this site took different routes through the same kind of milestone. Julia Hartz co-founded Eventbrite and took it public in 2018, then agreed in December 2025 to sell it to Bending Spoons. Eugenia Kuyda’s Wabi is betting on AI agents for consumers, where Pigment sells them to the finance department.
Sources: The Next Web (October 21, 2026), Finyear (April 4, 2024), ENS Paris-Saclay Alumni. Last checked October 28, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Pigment?
Eléonore Crespo and Romain Niccoli founded Pigment in Paris in 2019. Niccoli was a co-founder of the ad-tech company Criteo. Crespo studied physics at ENS Paris-Saclay and worked at Google, per her school's alumni profile.
How much is Pigment worth?
$2.3 billion, the valuation of its $250 million Series E announced on October 21, 2026, per The Next Web. In April 2024 its Series D valued it at more than $1 billion.
What does Pigment do?
It makes AI software for business planning: budgets, sales targets and hiring plans in one shared model. Pigment says 85% of new metrics on the platform are now created by an AI agent. Customers include Danone, DirecTV, Siemens, Snowflake, Unilever, Anthropic and ElevenLabs.
How much has Pigment raised in total?
Finyear reported $393 million raised by April 2024. Adding the $250 million Series E gives about $643 million, our arithmetic; the company has not published a new total.