Chattanooga-based cloud software company launches new product, adds more than 60 employees

Andy Golden, Patricia Diaz and Charlie Moss, from left, with Skuid, talk during the Spirit of Innovation Awards luncheon and expo Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016 at the Chattanooga Convention Center.
Andy Golden, Patricia Diaz and Charlie Moss, from left, with Skuid, talk during the Spirit of Innovation Awards luncheon and expo Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016 at the Chattanooga Convention Center.
photo Ken McElrath, founder of SKUID.

Skuid, the Chattanooga-based cloud software company, has launched a new product and added more than 60 employees this year.

Skuid Brooklyn launched at the cusp of the holiday season. It lets customers join disparate data sources from almost any enterprise software platform to create applications without having to write any code. Skuid now includes Amazon Web Services as a preferred cloud infrastructure provider, adding to its longstanding partnership with Salesforce.

"Enterprise software, even in the cloud, has become so fragmented," said Skuid CEO Ken McElrath. "Our customers have been struggling to defrag their data sources to create truly useful apps, while leaving their data where it rests."

Company literature says that customers can create bespoke apps "at blazing speed" because Skuid allows them to point and click to connect to data from any source - including salesforce.com, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft - then easily assemble applications, portals and sites with a set of drag-and-drop user-interface components.

"There's demand all over the world," McElrath said. "Because we're a cloud platform, we can basically sell to anyone in the world."

Skuid reports having more than 5 million users in at least 30 countries. This year, it opened offices in London and Zurich, Switzerland. It also has offices in the San Francisco Bay area.

Skuid has about 125 employees, more than half in Chattanooga, and has been hiring rapidly. It hired at least 60 employees in the past year. In addition to those who work at its national and international offices, Skuid has full-time employees who work remotely in about half a dozen states, said Ellie Gamache, a company spokeswoman. Many of the company's Chattanooga employees have moved here from other cities, Gamache said.

Among Skuid's customers: Intuit, Open Gate Consulting and GE Oil & Gas (a subsidiary of General Electric).

"It's great to see a local tech startup like Skuid achieve product/market fit and be able to scale their operations, not only nationally, but now internationally," said Charlie Brock, CEO of Launch Tennessee.

McElrath launched Skuid - an acronym for Scalable Kit for User Interface Design - in 2013. The Pennsylvania native, who has an MFA degree, started in the technology world as a designer.

"I've just been involved in technology and software at a very deep level," the 54-year-old said. "Eventually, that led to some good opportunities with several startups." His credits includes Cazabba and Skoodat.

McElrath moved to Chattanooga from Phoenix, Ariz., about eight years ago. His sons attended Covenant College, and he wanted to move business operations to the East Coast, so Chattanooga was a good fit.

Developing Skuid's product grew naturally, McElrath said. During earlier involvement with technology, he and colleagues "realized there were huge limitations with enterprise software," he said. "It was really necessity that drove us to build this platform for ourselves. We realized that everybody wanted this ability."

Skuid has raised at least $6.6 million from investors, according to SEC filings. The company says it has more than doubled revenue, company size and customer base year over the year.

Skuid was a finalist this year for the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce Spirit of Innovation Awards held in November.

Contact Mitra Malek at mmalek@timesfreepress.com or www.mitramalek.com.

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