Coghead

About Coghead

Coghead, founded in 2003, operated from Redwood City, California, as a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) company that enabled users to build and host custom online database applications. The firm's core product was a fully hosted, web-based environment where individuals, particularly those without a background in programming, could design, build, and maintain business applications from the ground up. This was accomplished through a drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG user interface that required minimal to no coding.

The company's business model was centered on software-as-a-service (SaaS), generating revenue through paid subscription plans which it launched in June 2007. Prior to the paid launch, Coghead's service was available through a limited-access beta program before opening to free trial accounts in April 2007. The platform was designed for the management of and collaboration on business data, with application examples including project management, customer relationship management (CRM), and bug tracking. For its paid subscribers, Coghead offered the ability to create and publish "Coglets," which were web forms that permitted external visitors to view or submit data into the user's Coghead database.

Coghead successfully raised approximately $11.2 million in venture capital funding over two rounds. The funding rounds included participation from investors such as American Capital Management, Ares Capital Corporation, Western Technology Investment, and SAP Ventures. The company's journey culminated on February 19, 2009, when it was announced that its intellectual property and assets were being acquired by the German software corporation SAP AG. Following the acquisition, SAP took the public-facing service offline, intending to integrate Coghead's technology as an internal development tool to accelerate its own SaaS application development. This strategic move by SAP left Coghead's existing customer base needing to migrate their applications to alternative solutions.