Software Pricing Partners Revenue (2024)

Chris Mele is the Managing Partner of Software Pricing Partners. He came to the firm as a former client: he hired Software Pricing Partners while running Companion Cabinet, his prior software company, and later joined the firm after exiting Companion Cabinet in 2013.

Mele co-founded Companion Cabinet in approximately 2002 alongside a friend from his Ernst and Young career. The company built an ERP-style platform for interior and exterior products businesses, primarily in the United States and Europe. Mele bootstrapped the company for three years without taking any pay, funding early operations by liquidating assets from his Ernst and Young career, including a houseboat, and supplementing income through commercial acting work. The company raised approximately $1.5 million in total angel funding between 2002 and 2013 from roughly 15 investors, using a mix of vehicles including preferred stock, convertible debentures, straight rounds, full rounds, and partial rounds. Mele retained approximately 25 percent ownership at the time of the 2013 exit.

Companion Cabinet operated on-premise through the late 1990s and early 2000s, with average on-premise transaction sizes reaching up to $300,000. In 2008, coinciding with the emergence of Amazon Web Services and the onset of the financial crisis, the company converted to a SaaS model. That conversion involved repricing software that had been sold at approximately $500,000 on-premise into a cloud equivalent over a three-year horizon, targeting roughly $75,000 per year. At its peak, Companion Cabinet served approximately 60 to 70 SMB and mid-market customers, plus strategic relationships with larger accounts such as Lowe's and major pro-build and home-building supply companies. Mele confirmed to host Nathan Latka that revenue was closer to $10 million, not the $18 million Latka had estimated by multiplying the $300,000 average transaction size by 60 customers, noting that the $300,000 figure reflected the upper end of the on-premise range and that the actual mix across SMB, mid-market, and enterprise produced a lower blended figure. In 2013, Mele's co-founder bought out Mele and the angel investors, taking the business private under a new name. Mele described the exit as mutual and noted he also gained a spouse, who had served as the company's VP of marketing.

Net worth was not discussed in the interview. A GetLatka estimate is not possible given that no valuation for the Companion Cabinet exit was disclosed.