Amicus Interactive Gains Funding, Rounds Out Executive Team, and Changes Name to Cenquest.PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 9, 1999-- Amicus AMICUS Automated Management Information Civil Users System Interactive today announced that it has changed its name to Cenquest, added two new members to its executive management staff and received $4.5 million first-round funding from two highly respected venture funds, Sevin Rosen and Hummer Winblad. After doing business for over two years as Amicus Interactive, the company changed its name to Cenquest. "Our society is on the brink of an educational frontier that applies the increasing pervasiveness of the Internet to learning," said LaVonne Reimer Young, Cenquest president and chief executive officer. "As pioneers in the future of online learning, we wanted a name that signified the quest for Verb 1. quest for - go in search of or hunt for; "pursue a hobby" quest after, go after, pursue look for, search, seek - try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of; "The police are searching for clues"; "They are searching for the learning in the next century, so we chose Cenquest. We believe it is a name that communicates our pursuit of educational excellence and innovation." Reimer Young founded the company in 1997 to develop and deliver multimedia and online graduate degrees for busy professionals that would free these non-traditional students from the "time and space" constraints of the classroom. The company is currently in discussions with many leading graduate schools and expects to announce new partnerships in Q3 1999. One of the company's first university partnerships was with the Oregon Graduate Institute (OGI OGI Oregon Graduate Institute OGI Office of Geographic Information OGI Ola Grimsby Institute OGI Overlapping Global Interval ). "Because OGI wanted to reach more students, we looked at many solutions before we chose Cenquest as a partner to provide a comprehensive, high-quality, online graduate degree for our Management in Science and Technology program," said Ed Thompson Ed Thompson (born December 25, 1944, in Elroy, Wisconsin) was the United States Libertarian Party candidate for Governor of Wisconsin in 2002 . He received 11% of the vote. He was elected mayor of Tomah, Wisconsin, in April, 2000, with 58% of the vote. , president of Oregon Graduate Institute. "The professor and student response to our online graduate courses has been very positive." Cenquest partners with leading universities, like OGI, to help them extend their enrollment to non-traditional students. Cenquest works with these universities to develop and deploy a complete solution for online graduate programs that addresses the growing population of students, who tend to be busy professionals lacking the time for on-campus study and who need post-graduate work to remain competitive and advance their careers. The company and the university split the tuition so that each derives a revenue stream. In addition, Cenquest reserves the right to license these programs to universities serving other regions. Two New Vice-Presidents Recently, Cenquest filled open vice-president positions for marketing and sales and chief financial officer. Ronald Resnick assumes the vice-president of marketing and sales position. Previously, Resnick was the vice president of marketing for Thrustmaster Inc., Portland, OR. He brings broad-based experience in marketing, sales and business development to the executive team, and has a proven marketing record in a variety of industries, including consumer electronics, publishing and interactive multimedia products. He has worked for several start-ups to provide the vision to develop new markets and grow their business. John Watkins John Watkins could be any of the following:
Importance of sales management is critical for any commercial organization. Expanding business in not possible without increasing sales volumes, and effective sales management goal is to organize sales team work in such a manner that ensures a , Watkins has held senior positions with several start-ups. Most recently, he served as executive vice president of sales at RadiSys (Hillsboro, OR). He was the CFO who guided RadiSys through its highly successful initial public offering. Before RadiSys, he worked as chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. and CFO for Interconnect Technology Inc., a spin-off of Tektronix Inc. New Venture Funding Sevin Rosen Funds Sevin Rosen Funds (SRF) is a venture capital firm that was established in 1981 by L.J. Sevin and Ben Rosen. SRF was involved in the financing of ArQule, CIENA, Citrix, Cypress Semiconductor, Electronic Arts, Lotus Development Corporation, Silicon Graphics, and Vitesse. of Palo Alto Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , CA and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners of San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , CA have jointly funded Cenquest with $4.5 million. "When we reviewed Cenquest's business model, we immediately saw that it had the potential to grow into a strong business," said Steve Domenik, partner in Sevin Rosen Funds. "By partnering with select universities, Cenquest deploys technology-based learning in conjunction with the university and targets students who can't come to the school rather than trying to displace the traditional on-campus study. It's this partnership that really drives the development of high-quality educational products for the student." Ranked among the top five of the country's venture capital firms Name Location Founding date Managing Partners/Directors Specialty Capital managed 5AM Ventures Menlo Park, CA; Waltham, MA 2002 John Diekman, PhD (managing partner), Scott Rocklage, PhD (managing partner), Andrew Schwab (managing partner) life sciences $200M [1] , Sevin Rosen Funds (http://www.srfunds.com/) was a lead investor in Compaq Computer Corp. and also backed other successful ventures such as Lotus Development, Cyrix and Ciena. Founded in 1981, Sevin Rosen Funds has over 100 companies in its portfolio. With an excess of $500 million in 6 funds, Sevin Rosen invests in a broad range of technology-based projects, including data communications data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications make it possible for one computer to "talk" with another. , telecommunications, semiconductors, software and information services See Information Systems. . Created in 1989, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners (http://www.hummerwinblad.com/) was the first venture capital fund to focus on software. As the software industry grew from PC software to enterprise computing to Internet applications, Hummer Winblad has funded the entrepreneurs and ideas that drove it. Its partners believe that innovative software will increasingly be the core driver of competitive advantage within companies, will underlie valuable services to consumers and corporations, and will change the economics of entire industries, including education. The firm has investments in "dot-com" and software companies, including HomeGrocer.com, Netpoia, Wind River Systems, Hyperion Solutions, Liquid Audio and BusinessTravel.com. About Cenquest Cenquest's vision is to become the leader in high-quality, technology-based learning by setting the standard for university-level online education. It provides a viable, productive alternative to on-campus study by partnering with leading universities to deliver high-demand graduate degrees and courseware to busy business professionals. To assist universities in delivering superior online education, Cenquest provides an interdisciplinary team interdisciplinary team, n a group that consists of specialists from several fields combining skills and resources to present guidance and information. of experts, a proprietary system of course design and integrated teaching models that focus on the way students learn. Founded in the winter of 1997 as Amicus Interactive, today the company has many graduate courses online for leading universities as well as under development. See examples of Cenquest developed courseware using multimedia and the Internet at http://dl.mst.ogi.edu. |
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