Mekko Graphics

What Mekko Graphics does

Mekko Graphics is a charting software company that develops a Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel add-in enabling users to create specialized business charts. Its proprietary chart types — Marimekko (two-dimensional stacked), Bar Mekko (variable-width), Cascade/Waterfall, and bubble charts with relative market share — are not natively available in standard Office tooling and are positioned for finance, marketing, and strategy consulting users who need to present multi-dimensional data in single visualization. The product runs as a native add-in on Windows and Mac OS X, with Excel integration currently Windows-only.

The company operates as a wholly-owned brand under Global Software, LLC, the legal entity of insightsoftware, headquartered at 8529 Six Forks Rd., Raleigh, NC. Revenue is generated through annual subscription licensing at three tiers: a single-user plan ($399/year first year, $299/year renewal), volume licensing for 4-100 users with discounted per-seat pricing ranging from $249 down to $179, and an enterprise tier for 101+ users at $149/user with custom branding and corporate training. Distribution is direct via the company website with Stripe and PayPal payment processing, supported by phone sales and a 30-day free trial.

The business serves a horizontal customer base spanning strategy consulting, corporate finance, marketing, and non-profit sectors, with named users including Travelocity, Grupo Gayosso, A Better Chicago, and Incoho Consulting Group. The product transitioned from a perpetual license to a subscription model in 2012, completing the cutover in 2014. Channel activity is supported by content marketing, case studies, and a chart gallery organized by type and function.

Name

Mekko Graphics

Legal name

Global Software, LLC

Website

https://mekkographics.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1995

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Mekko Graphics develops a Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel add-in that enables users to create specialized business charts, including Marimekko, Bar Mekko, and waterfall charts. It serves finance, marketing, and strategy professionals through annual subscriptions under insightsoftware (Global Software, LLC).

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Waltham

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Annual Software Subscription: Annual subscription license per user with access to all chart types, PowerPoint and Excel integration, free upgrades and support. License valid for one year from purchase date.
2. Volume Licensing: Discounted per-user pricing for organizations with 4-100 users, with tiered pricing based on volume (up to 55% savings from single license price)
3. Enterprise Licensing: Custom pricing for 101+ users including custom branding and corporate training add-ons

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Mekko Graphics is a charting add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel that lets business users create specialized presentation charts — including Marimekko, Bar Mekko, waterfall/cascade, bubble, scatter, bar, line, area, Gantt, and pie/doughnut — directly inside Office on Windows (and on Mac OS X for PowerPoint). The software imports data from Excel, automates chart creation and refresh, and enables assembly of multi-chart dashboards for finance, marketing, and strategy presentations, sold as an annual subscription with single-user, volume, and enterprise tiers.

Product overview

Mekko Graphics is a single charting add-in product that integrates natively with Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel. The product provides a comprehensive suite of specialized business chart types including Marimekko, Bar Mekko, waterfall/cascade, bubble, scatter, bar, line, area, Gantt, pie/doughnut, and table charts. The core Mekko Graphics software includes all chart types as unified functionality within the PowerPoint and Excel add-ins. An associated web-based Mekko Graphics Portal allows users to manage licenses, add users, and renew subscriptions. The software is offered as an annual subscription with tiered pricing for single users, volume licenses (4-100 users), and enterprise deployments (101+ users).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Mekko Graphics Charting add-in software for Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel that enables business users to create specialized presentation charts (Marimekko, Bar Mekko, waterfall/cascade, bubble, scatter, bar, line, area, Gantt, pie/doughnut, table) directly inside Office on Windows and Mac OS X, with Excel data import, chart automation, and dashboard assembly. Sold as an annual subscription for single users, volume (4-100 users), and enterprise (101+ users).
• Mekko Graphics Portal Web-based portal at central.insightsoftware.com that allows Mekko Graphics customers to manage their subscriptions, add users under an active serial number, and renew expiring or expired licenses.

Quantifiable outcome

• $35 million in cost savings identified for clients using Marimekko charts to visualize expense data

Named customers5 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

Feature6 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• think-cell: think-cell is a PowerPoint add-in for creating sophisticated business charts (waterfall, Marimekko, Gantt) used by Fortune 500 strategy and finance teams. It is the closest direct competitor to Mekko Graphics, with a near-identical value proposition of specialized charts embedded natively in Microsoft Office.
• Slingshot: Slingshot is a data visualization and dashboarding tool aimed at business users that connects to multiple data sources and produces presentation-ready visuals. It overlaps with Mekko Graphics in making analytics output more visually compelling for executive audiences.

Broad incumbents

• Power BI: Microsoft's flagship BI and visualization platform offers an expanding catalog of native chart types and AI-driven insights inside the Office ecosystem. As the platform owner of PowerPoint and Excel, Power BI is both Mekko Graphics' distribution channel and its most existential competitive threat.
• Tableau: Tableau (Salesforce) is a leading data visualization and BI platform used by analysts across enterprises. While Tableau targets dashboarding and exploratory analytics rather than presentation-grade charts, it competes for the same analyst budget and visualization mindshare.
• Qlik: Qlik is an established BI/analytics platform with visualization capabilities serving enterprise customers. It competes for the same analyst and decision-maker budget Mekko Graphics targets, particularly for self-service visual analytics in finance and strategy use cases.
• Sisense: Sisense is an AI-driven analytics platform targeting embedded and enterprise BI use cases. It competes for the same enterprise analytics and visualization budget Mekko Graphics addresses, particularly among finance and operations teams needing presentation-ready outputs.

Emerging players

• Datawrapper: Datawrapper is a web-based chart creation tool used by newsrooms and analysts to produce publication-quality visuals. It overlaps with Mekko Graphics' mission of making charts more persuasive and presentation-ready, though it is browser-first rather than Office-integrated.
• Flourish: Flourish is a data storytelling and visualization platform that enables users to build interactive, presentation-grade charts and stories from data. It overlaps with Mekko Graphics on the goal of producing compelling analytical visualizations for non-technical audiences.

Others

• Highcharts: Highcharts is a JavaScript charting library for developers building web-based dashboards and analytics. It serves as enabling technology for embedding specialized charts into business applications, representing a supply-side alternative to Mekko Graphics' Office-embedded approach.
• Plotly: Plotly provides open-source and commercial charting libraries (including Dash for analytics apps) used widely by data teams. It represents the broader ecosystem of developer-grade visualization tools against which Office add-ins like Mekko Graphics compete for analyst attention.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/mekkographics
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/MekkoGraphics
• Facebookfacebook.com/Mekko-Graphics-1602319873366228/timeline?ref=page_internal
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/46841?trk=tyah&trkInfo=clickedVertical%3Acompany%2CclickedEntityId%3A46841%2Cidx%3A3-2-4%2CtarId%3A1453312077858%2Ctas%3Dmekko

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Mekko Graphics