June 26 (Reuters) - Creatio, a low-code software

platform for customer relationship management that competes with

Salesforce ( CRM ), said on Wednesday it had secured $200

million in a new funding round, giving it "unicorn" status with

a valuation of $1.2 billion.

Founded in 2014, Creatio employs 700 people across seven

global offices, including Poland and Ukraine. It serves middle

to large size enterprises including Coca-Cola and MetLife ( MET )

, but is not yet turning a profit.

The latest funding, led by Sapphire Ventures, came after

Creatio's revenue increased at 50% annually for several years.

StepStone Group and existing investors Volition Capital and

Horizon Capital also participated, it told Reuters.

Creatio raised $68 million in 2021 after a few years of

"bootstrapping", keeping afloat without raising funding.

Katherine Kostereva, Creatio's founder and CEO, said the

company is cash flow break-even and capital efficient.

"Creatio's underlying low-code automation platform provides

this freedom to automate your workflows on the fly," Kostereva

said in an interview.

"We're very happy to have our partner investors on board,

but also the control over the strategy stays with the founding

team," she added.

Creatio plans to use the cash to accelerate its product

development, using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to

speed up automation in marketing and sales-related tasks.

While low code and no code startups have seen a cooling down

from a funding frenzy in 2021, Creatio stands out for focusing

on specific business processes, said Rajeev Dham, managing

director at Sapphire Ventures, which led the investment.

"They aren't just general purpose no code platform. They are

no code with a architecturally flexible backend, while focusing

on a pretty big market," said Dham.