General Atlantic has increased its stake in the Belgian business software leader Odoo at a striking €7 billion valuation. The follow-on investment was made by purchasing additional shares from Wallonie Entreprendre. Even after selling part of its holding, Wallonie Entreprendre continues to retain a 3% stake. This could position Odoo as one of Europe’s most influential software companies.
Besides General Atlantic, the company has raised investments from CapitalG and Sequoia Capital, both led a separate €500 million secondary transaction that valued the company at €5 billion earlier.
Since General Atlantic’s first investment in 2023, Odoo has expanded rapidly and profitably across 180 countries, serving 170,000+ paying customers. Its newest release, Odoo 19, has accelerated adoption by adding deeper integrations and advanced automation capabilities.
The story behind the Belgian unicorn
Founded in 2002 by CEO Fabien Pinckaers, Odoo began as a challenger in a crowded ERP market dominated by legacy giants. Pinckaers’ journey into software began at the age of 13, when he developed business management software for a company called Les Transports Verts.
His most significant breakthrough came in 2002 with the launch of TinyERP. Initially a one-man operation, he handled everything from coding to customer support. Over the years, TinyERP evolved into OpenERP, and later, in 2014, it became Odoo, reflecting a larger ambition to create an all-in-one business software suite that was powerful, accessible, and scalable.
Its strategy was to build an open, modular system that small and medium-sized businesses could afford and adapt without heavy enterprise overheads.
Odoo’s growth strategy
Odoo’s early years were driven by community developers. Its “open core” model encouraged global contributors to build applications, eventually expanding the ecosystem to nearly 40,000 modules, covering finance, HR, sales, marketing, logistics, and dozens of niche operational needs. This scale has made it one of the largest business application marketplaces in the world.
The company’s break into unicorn territory came after years of quiet but relentless expansion. Odoo proved that full-suite business software could be accessible, low-friction, and designed for companies without deep IT resources. Its product philosophy, single codebase, single database, and end-to-end integration, eliminated the vendor fragmentation that many SMEs struggled with. The result is a platform that combines breadth with simplicity, appealing to businesses upgrading from spreadsheets or juggling multiple standalone tools.
The company’s latest version, Odoo 19, has accelerated global adoption further by offering deeper integration and more advanced features. Its expanding application suite means SMEs can increasingly rely on Odoo as their single operating platform.
How Odoo is changing the landscape
The ERP space has seen little disruption over the past two decades. Large enterprise-focused platforms dominated the upper end, while a patchwork of small tools filled the SME market. Odoo broke the pattern by offering something neither side fully managed: an affordable, integrated, and customisable suite with global usability.
Odoo’s growth has coincided with a rising need among SMEs to streamline digital operations. Businesses want consolidation, predictable costs, and platforms that can scale from a microenterprise to a mid-sized global operation. Odoo fits these expectations by offering a broad selection of applications that plug seamlessly into one another.
A notable advantage is its approach to pricing. Odoo remains cost-effective even as it scales, something legacy players often fail to match. The company has also strengthened its onboarding, implementation, and customer success frameworks to support wider international adoption.
