Evernote CEO Phil Libin has stated his company is looking for his replacement.
Fortune is reporting that Libin, CEO of the upstart “unicorn” tech company since 2007, is looking for a new CEO to spark the company. Evernote needs “someone who is going to be better than me at it,” said Libin. “I’m a product person, they need a professional CEO.” Libin also stated that Evernote may be close to hiring a new CEO soon.
Evernote is restructuring their upper management staff, also hiring Jeff Shotts as chief financial officer. Shotts has experience in different sizes of companies, having worked with ModCloth, Ebay, and Logitech in the past. Evernote has also promoted Linda Kozlowski from vice-president of worldwide operations to chief operations officer.
Evernote is an online company that offers companies ways to create, save, and share documents, plus other online services. Evernote offers free and paid tiers of services for its customers.
Evernote has recently has accumulated $290 million in venture capital. Evernote is also valued at over $1 billion, giving it “unicorn” status after raising more than $70 million in 2012. Evernote claims they have a customer base of over 100 million, but could not say how many of them are current, active users. It will be incumbent on the new CEO to reinvigorate interest in the company while Evernote is still eyeing an IPO.
San Francisco Business News is reporting that the Redwood City, California company has been valued at $290 million for a while, having decided to not have a venture capital raising round since 2012. Evernote has also been facing competition from other companies like Dropbox, Google and Microsoft who are offering similar services.
Evernote states it has approximately 8 million customers who use their subscription services, which includes an upgraded “plus” version for $25 dollars a year. Evernote also claims to have had $40 million in sales last fiscal year.
According to Alley Watch , Evernote has had 12 rounds of venture capital raising, collecting more than $325 million from investors like T. Rowe Price and Sequoia Capital. Evernote has been planning on using these funds for growth in the portable devices market.
“We are in a period of growing up as a company—kind of in our awkward teenage years maybe,” Libin said Monday on “ Squawk Alley .” Libin says the main goal at Evernote is to become compatible with as many devices as possible.
“We still want to be in every reasonable device; every device that we think is cool and has a shot of success,” he said.
“The wearable market is going to become extremely significant for us,” said Libin.
[Image courtesy of Tech In Asia]