Buylink Closes Series A Venture Capital Funding Led by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners; 2,350 Manufacturers, 6,700 Retailers Converge At Gift Industry Online Marketplace.Business Editors SAN MATEO San Mateo (săn mətā`ō), city (1990 pop. 85,486), San Mateo co., W Calif., on San Francisco Bay; inc. 1894. It is a commercial and retail center with some high-technology manufacturing. San Mateo, Spanish for St. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 24, 2000 Buylink, Inc. (www.buylink.com), an online marketplace for wholesalers and retailers of consumer products, today announced it has closed a Series A venture capital funding round led by a $4 million investment from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Hank Barry, a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, also will join the company's Board of Directors. "We were immediately impressed by the Buylink team, its business model and its achievements to date in the gift marketplace," said Barry. "Even prior to our funding, Buylink had emerged as the primary online marketplace for more than 9,000 of the gift industry's premier wholesalers and retailers - almost entirely through word of mouth. Buylink is the first integrated, 24-hour online marketplace for retailers and wholesalers of gifts, and the gift industry service is just the first of many such market services that Buylink plans to offer." Buylink plans to leverage Hummer Winblad's investment to expand marketing programs and provide new services requested by users throughout the highly fragmented specialty gift industry. Its customers run the gamut See color gamut. gamut - The gamut of a monitor is the set of colours it can display. There are some colours which can't be made up of a mixture of red, green and blue phosphor emissions and so can't be displayed by any monitor. from "garage" manufacturing operations Manufacturing operations concern the operation of a facility, as opposed to maintenance, supply and distribution, health, and safety, emergency response, human resources, security, information technology and other infrastructural support organizations. to global corporations. "We are pleased to receive such enthusiastic support from this top-level venture capital organization during a time of rapid growth for Buylink," said Todd Dunning, president of Buylink. "The capital will help us to continue moving aggressively to provide wholesalers worldwide with integrated Internet technology solutions. Specialty retailers and their vendor suppliers are clamoring clam·or n. 1. A loud outcry; a hubbub. 2. A vehement expression of discontent or protest: a clamor in the press for pollution control. 3. A loud sustained noise. for better ways to find each other, communicate and transact An earlier e-commerce system for the Web from Open Market that included order capture and secure order fulfillment using credit cards, ecash and other payment systems. It included customer service and subscription administration capabilities as well as an integrated database for reporting , and this investment will ensure our leadership over the long term, and through our years of continuing growth." Pioneering marketplace for the gift industry More than 2,350 gift manufacturers and sales representatives and more than 6,700 gift retailers currently use the Buylink.com wholesale marketplace to show and source product lines, transact with significant cost savings, and participate in incentives and market dynamics unavailable anywhere else in the $51 billion domestic gift industry. Growth in the company's user base to date has been achieved largely through word of mouth rather than marketing. About Buylink Starting from a simple CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). based searchable catalog in early 1996, Buylink.com is an online marketplace for the specialty gift industry that brings thousands of manufacturers and merchants together from around the globe. The company provides a nexus for the specialty consumer goods consumer goods Any tangible commodity purchased by households to satisfy their wants and needs. Consumer goods may be durable or nondurable. Durable goods (e.g., autos, furniture, and appliances) have a significant life span, often defined as three years or more, and industry with a critical mass of gift manufacturers that attract retail buyers with whom they already do business. In an industry where vendor supplier turnover is high and marketing budgets are low, Buylink brings fresh, vendor-updated product lines to merchants that need the latest products quickly. For vendors, Buylink allows overnight exposure to thousands of active retailer accounts for a zero customer acquisition cost. About Hummer Winblad Venture Partners Hummer Winblad Venture Partners (www.humwin.com), headquartered in 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 , has earned a global reputation for helping emerging Internet firms become category leaders. Its portfolio features emerging leaders in internet infrastructure, electronic commerce and applications services, including Liquid Audio, AdForce, Net Perceptions, Pets.com, HomeGrocer.com, Rivals.com, The Knot, IMX IMX In My eXperience IMX Interactive Music Exchange (TV show) IMX Integrated Multimedia Exchange IMX Industrywide Mortgage Exchange IMX Intermodal Marketing Extension IMX Inverse Multiplexor Exchange, Excelergy, Extensity ex·ten·si·ty n. pl. ex·ten·si·ties 1. a. The quality of having extension or being extensive. b. A specific degree or range of extension. 2. , Employease, Hurricane Technologies and The National Transportation Exchange. |
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