Celonis climbs to 13th on Forbes 2024 Cloud 100 list

Celonis has moved up four places to secure the 13th position on the Forbes 2024 Cloud 100 list, a ranking of the top 100 private cloud companies globally. This marks the sixth consecutive year that the company has appeared on the list, which celebrates its AI-powered Process Intelligence platform.

Alex Rinke, co-CEO and co-founder of Celonis, highlighted the importance of Process Intelligence in the current technological landscape. "We are not just in the age of AI, but we are in the Era of Efficiency," said Rinke. "Process Intelligence is critical for organisations to generate value from their business operations and technology investments, especially AI. In fact, there is no enterprise AI without PI."

Celonis is responsible for identifying over USD $18 billion in value for its customers, spanning various processes, systems, and industries. The company claims that approximately 50 per cent of the top 200 companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list utilise its platform. Esteemed clients include Autodesk, BMW Group, ERGO Group, GE HealthCare, Ingram Micro, Lufthansa Group, and the State of Oklahoma.

Recognition from industry analysts has bolstered Celonis's stature. Both Gartner and Everest Group have acknowledged its platform as the leading process intelligence tool worldwide. Additionally, Celonis has been acknowledged as the most valuable startup in New York and Germany, the only German decacorn, and the second largest unicorn in Europe.

This year, Celonis introduced the Process Intelligence Graph (PI Graph), a new feature central to its Process Intelligence platform. The PI Graph, built using Celonis's process mining technology, generates a digital twin of a business. This digital simulation covers the unique context in which the organisation operates, highlighting areas of improvement and efficiency.

Elaborating on the impact of the PI Graph, Rinke stated, "The Celonis PI Graph provides this context with a semantic layer that sits above the data to give it meaning. It understands both the current 'as is' state and the future 'to be' state of the business." He emphasised that this understanding facilitates technologies like automation and enterprise AI.

The company’s data model is designed to be extensible, allowing third parties to contribute to the context layer, described metaphorically as a "Wikipedia for process intelligence." This collaborative approach aims to enhance the utility of enterprise AI by offering enriched process insights.

New AI-enabled features in Celonis’s platform include the Process Copilot and a redesigned Studio, which aid in streamlining value detection and app development within the Celonis ecosystem. These advancements leverage AI to boost business transformation and decision-making.

For nine years, the Cloud 100 by Forbes has reviewed submissions from numerous cloud startups and private companies. The evaluation criteria include market leadership (35%), estimated valuation (30%), operating metrics (20%), and people and culture (15%). The process involves input from public cloud company CEOs who assist in appraising their private company counterparts.

"For nine years, the Forbes Cloud 100 list has recognised the leading private cloud companies in the world, from AI to work software, infrastructure to security," said Alex Konrad, Forbes editor of the Cloud 100. "This year's list is the strongest group of standouts yet, with revenue, valuations, and growth that will eventually make for historic IPOs."

Mary D'Onofrio, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, commented on the growth and competitiveness seen this year. "Across nine years of data, we have yet to see as competitive of a cohort as the 2024 Cloud 100. The list value reached USD $820 billion this year, the highest list value in Cloud 100 history," she noted.

Paul Drews, managing partner at Salesforce Ventures, remarked on the recent industry innovations. "The past year, our industry has seen a generational step forward in innovation, and with AI leading the charge, we are witnessing one of the most important platform shifts in decades," he said. "The Cloud 100 list represents the best of the best, and we've never been more excited about what the future holds."