Utah-based Qualtrics is valued at $2.5 billion in its latest funding round.

In a funding round, software company Qualtrics, has managed to raise $180 million from venture capital firms and in the process it has given rise to hopes that it will be able to sustain itself so as to launch its IPO.

In the new funding round, Qualtrics has been valued at $2.5 billion, said the company said. In its 2014 funding round, the company had been valued just over $1 billion.

“This is definitely a pre-IPO round,” said Ryan Smith, founder and chief executive of Qualtrics.

In its latest funding round, venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Accel provided the funding.

In total Accel has poured in around $150 million into Qualtrics over the last five years. Qualtrics is the only company which has seen this level of backing from Accel, said Ryan Sweeney, an investing partner at Accel.

Of significantly value is the fact that Accel rarely invests more than $100 million into its companies, he disclosed.

Qualtrics creates research software that allows companies to track the experiences of both employees and their customers through market research, employee evaluations, website feedback and other such data collections. It has more than 8,500 business customers around the world.

Smith disclosed that the company will hit more than $250 million in revenues in 2017.

As part of its preparation for launching its IPO, Murayy Demo, the CFO of Atlassian Corp is to be appointed to its board of directors.

Neither Smith nor Sweeney offered a timeline for Qualtrics’ IPO.

Utah-based Qualtrics has 10 offices globally.