ArsDigita Secures $35 Million First-Round Financing; Investment by General Atlantic and Greylock to expand technical staff, infrastructure.Business/Technology Editors NOTE TO EDITORS: In the company name E*TRADE, noted in this news release, there is an "asterisk" symbol between E and TRADE. This symbol may not appear properly in some systems. CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 2000 ArsDigita Corporation, an open-source enterprise software firm building Web-based solutions for corporate, commercial and educational communities, today announced it has secured $35 million in first-round financing led by General Atlantic Partners and completed by Greylock. The 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] also secured warrants to purchase an additional $15 million in the company at a later date. ArsDigita will use the funding to continue building its infrastructure and expanding operations worldwide. At present, the company employs 110 people and operates seven offices in the US, Europe and Japan. Funds will also be applied to accelerating the growth of its product development staff, responsible for ongoing development of the ArsDigita Community System The ArsDigita Community System (ACS) was an advanced Open Source toolkit for developing community web applications developed primarily by developers associated with ArsDigita Corporation. (ACS (Asynchronous Communications Server) See network access server. ), a suite of open-source, enterprise-class applications that support ecommerce, enterprise management and education/training conducted through online communities. "Our goal has always been to develop the world's best software for supporting communities and collaboration on the Web," said Philip Greenspun, founder and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of ArsDigita. "While we've been self-funded to this point and have built a profitable company with $20 million in revenue, it makes strategic sense for us to increase our rate of growth and develop new products with this kind of funding. Also, working with partners of this caliber will help us enormously with recruiting and in building other important business relationships." Peter L. Bloom, a partner at General Atlantic Partners, said, "This is an opportunity for General Atlantic to participate in the development of a market-leading software company, uniquely positioned to deliver open source solutions and thus capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. one of today's most important customer-driven technological trends. ArsDigita's strength comes from its proven world-class open source applications for building on-line communities and ecommerce capabilities, combined with Philip's visionary leadership." "As one of the leading firms to specialize in early-stage investments in the open source community, such as our work with Red Hat, we're excited to be in this first round of financing," added Chip Hazard, a general partner at Greylock. "ArsDigita has been building an exceptional management team and we're looking forward to working with them in the enterprise software space." Greenspun, who has been developing commercial software since 1978, teaches computer science at MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been published widely in the fields of Web publishing Creating a Web site and placing it on the Web server. A Web site is a collection of HTML pages with the home page typically named INDEX.HTML. Web sites are designed using Web authoring software which provides a graphical layout capability or by hand coding in HTML or both. and Web-based collaboration. The company's 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. , Ernest Blackwelder, was formerly co-founder and CEO of iMedix, an internet healthcare firm; a division president of Vivra Specialty Partners, a specialty physician company; and a consultant with Bain & Company. Other principal members of ArsDigita's executive team include VP of Operations Tracy Adams (formerly lead architect for Planet All, a Web-based affinity portal company); VP of Marketing and Business Development, Cesar Brea (previously a consultant with Bain and a 15-year veteran in high-technology and business management); and VP of the company's healthcare marketing vertical, Harry Greenspun, MD, formerly co-founder of iMedix. About General Atlantic Partners General Atlantic Partners focuses exclusively on investing in global information-technology, Internet and Internet-enabled businesses at all stages of development. The firm has more than $6 billion in capital under management and $2 billion of capital available for investment. GA Partners has invested in over 80 companies, including E*Trade Group, Priceline.com, Proxicom, Belle Systems and LHS (filename extension) lhs - The filename extension for literate Haskell source files. Group. The firm is unique in its global perspective on information technology, its worldwide presence, its long-term approach to investments and its commitment to provide sustained strategic assistance aimed at creating maximum value for its portfolio companies. GA Partners (www.gapartners.com) has offices in Greenwich, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Reston, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong Hong Kong (hŏng kŏng), Mandarin Xianggang, special administrative region of China, formerly a British crown colony (2005 est. pop. 6,899,000), land area 422 sq mi (1,092 sq km), adjacent to Guangdong prov. and Sao Paulo. About Greylock Founded in 1965, Greylock is one of the nation's largest early-stage venture firms with assets under management Assets Under Management (AUM) is a term used by financial services companies in the mutual fund and money management or investment management business to gauge how much money they are managing. of more than $1 billion. With offices in 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. and Boston, the firm focuses on early stage investments in communications technology and services; Internet infrastructure and technology; ecommerce and enterprise software; and services. Greylock works in a highly supportive way with entrepreneurs who commit to building long-term value in companies that aspire to lead their markets. Greylock's early stage investments in recent years include Red Hat, Phone.com, DoubleClick, Media Metrix, Open Market, iXL, Kiva kiva (kē`və), large, underground ceremonial chamber, peculiar to the ancient and modern Pueblo. The modern kiva probably evolved from the slab houses (i.e. Software, CheckFree, Cygnus, Forte Software, Legato, ISS ISS See Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). Group, Trilogy, Clarus, Xircom, Ascend, Northpoint and Copper Mountain. Greylock has sponsored more successful IPO's than any other early-stage firm, with over 160 in total, and has been lead or co-lead investor in almost all of these companies. More information is available at www.greylock.com. About ArsDigita ArsDigita Corporation is the global leader in developing and supporting open source solutions for integrated Web applications in ecommerce, enterprise management and education. Some of the world's largest organizations rely on the ArsDigita Community System(TM) (ACS), the company's freely distributed suite of applications, to drive their online success. Websites and technologies incorporating the company's software include Hewlett-Packard, Siemens, America Online, Oracle Corporation, Away.com and the Environmental Defense Fund. Privately held, ArsDigita has grown to seven offices in the United States, Europe and Japan, with annualized annualized Of or relating to a variable that has been mathematically converted to a yearly rate. Inflation and interest rates are generally annualized since it is on this basis that these two variables are ordinarily stated and compared. revenues over $20 million. For further information see http://arsdigita.com; for details on the firm's non-profit educational and training programs, visit http://arsdigita.org. The name ArsDigita pays homage to the explosion of innovative musical styles during the 14th Century - a period known as Ars Nova (New Art). Today, ArsDigita is similarly committed to revolutionary approaches of maximizing the Web's value. |
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