This section highlights news announcements, solution provider growth news and platform enhancements in the B2B industry.
Rainmaker Systems, Inc., a global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions, today announced enhancements to its B2B e-Commerce solution. The company’s solutions are designed to drive online sales and renewals for products, subscriptions and training for clients and their channel partners.
Neolane, a provider of conversational marketing technology, today announced it has closed a $27 million financing round, led by Battery Ventures. Other investors include Auriga Partners, XAnge and Gilles Queru.
The company said it plans to use the funding to aggressively expand its reach, particularly in North America, and enhance its sales, marketing and product development efforts.
“Neolane has successfully carved out an impressive footprint within the marketing technology space,” said Morad Elhafed, Vice President, Battery Ventures. “We are impressed with the financial discipline that drove profitability for the company in 2011, its measured approach to corporate expansion, and Neolane’s ability to drive consistent and impressive revenues. We are optimistic about Neolane’s expansion goals and the overall future growth trajectory of this category.”
KnowledgeVision Systems, a provider of cloud-based tools and services for creating online, on-demand and live multimedia presentations, has closed an additional $2 million in Series A financing from a group of investors led by GrandBanks Capital. The company said it plans to use the new funds to strengthen its market positioning and support global expansion.
The Concord, MA-based company’s tools — KVStudio and Knovio — are designed to enable users to create synchronized online video and audio presentations that combine their best communicators with PowerPoint slides, web pages and applications and supplemental material, and make them available from web browsers and mobile devices anytime, anywhere.
Callidus Software Inc. a provider of sales effectiveness and cloud computing solutions, today announced its acquisition LeadFormix, a marketing automation and lead management vendor. The company acquired LeadFormix for approximately $9 million in cash, subject to final adjustments as set forth in the Agreement, according to a company press release.
Silicon Valley-based LeadFormix offers the Marketing Automation 2.0 solution, designed to help marketers convert anonymous online visits into qualified sales leads, and determine web site visitor interest and intent. Designed to drive collaboration between marketing, inside sales and field sales, the solution also features business intelligence and data mining technology.
VerticalResponse, a provider of self-service marketing solutions for small businesses, recently announced its acquisition of Roost, a privately held social media marketing technology company based in San Francisco, CA. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
With the acquisition of Roost, VerticalReponse said it intends to centralize the campaign efforts of its customers, which are primarily small businesses and nonprofit organizations. With the acquisition, the company’s customers will now have the ability to streamline initiatives and extend email campaigns to their social networks, as well as publish single posts or full social campaigns, according to VerticalResponse CEO Janine Popick.
GoodData, a cloud-based business intelligence (BI) platform, announced several significant developments in the closing months of 2011, including $15 million in new venture financing, bringing the company’s total raised to date to $28.5 million.
In August 2011, the company also added two new members to the Board of Directors: John O’Farrell, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and Dave Girouard, President of Google Enterprise. Andreessen Horowitz led the financing, with existing investors General Catalyst Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners and Windcrest Partners also contributing.
Extraprise, a provider of revenue optimization services for BtoB and BtoC enterprises, reported more than 50% growth in customer interactions in 2011 from multi-channel marketing campaigns executed by its i2i database marketing and demand generation services. Extraprise clients span across several vertical markets, including high technology, financial services, pharmaceuticals, business services, publishing and travel.
According to the company, the explosion of data and customer interactions is driving demand for right time revenue optimization services. Enterprise data is expected to grow at 650% in the next five years, with 80% of that data being unstructured and driven by customer conversations in call center notes, social media posts, CRM systems and email, according to Gartner.
G3 Communications announced the launch of Channel Marketer Report, a targeted e-media publication covering the latest solutions, trends and strategies to help vendors and their partners optimize their marketing, both to and through their partner networks.
Channel Marketer Report (CMR) will highlight solutions and processes designed to help marketing executives track results and sales leads across a complex, tiered marketing structure. In addition, CMR will provide prescriptive “how-to” articles, offering guidance for VARs and independent agents eager to increase sales.
Cloud-based marketing automation provider Pardot is continuing its rapid growth approaching year’s end, as the company has surpassed the 14,000-user mark, and doubled its employee count year over year. Additionally, the company said it has already added more than 100 new customers to date in Q4 2011.
In 2011, Pardot added more than 100 new deals per quarter, according to Co-Founder & COO Adam Blitzer, and he added the company is on track to finish Q4 with 130 new customers added.
