Genius Incorporated(TM) Secures $5.1 Million in Series A Venture Round.SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Genius Incorporated(TM) (formerly MarketingGenius.com), an innovator of on-demand customer intelligence solutions for sales and marketing professionals, announced today that it has secured $5.1 million in Series "A" funding, led by Emergence Capital Partners and Walden International. The financing is being used to expand the management team and market its first product, scheduled for release in Q2 2006. "Genius(TM) on-demand solutions will transform the way sales and marketing professionals qualify and serve customers on the web by instantly delivering one-to-one customer intelligence," said Gordon Ritter, general partner of Emergence Capital. "Our commitment to Genius Incorporated aligns with our mission of making early, forward-thinking software-as-service investments, as we did with Salesforce.com." Genius Incorporated was founded by David Thompson, former Chief Marketing Officer at WebEx Incorporated, and Robert Seidl, former co-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 Ceneca Software, which was acquired by Adobe Systems in 1995. As Chief Marketing Officer at WebEx, Thompson shipped products and executed marketing campaigns that propelled WebEx to become the global leader in on-demand software solutions. Seidl was the driving force behind Ceneca's PageMill, the market's first visual web page editor Software used to create and change Web pages (HTML-based documents). Low-level Web page editors are used to write HTML code directly. High-level Web authoring programs provide complete WYSIWYG design with the ability (in varying degrees) to switch back and forth between the page layout . "As a marketer, I know first hand the frustrations with traditional web analytics, marketing automation and other solutions that don't deliver the individual customer intelligence needed by sales and marketing professionals," said David Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Genius Incorporated. "We founded Genius with a broad vision: to empower sales and marketing professionals with actionable insights about their customers, delivered through easy-to-use solutions that don't require any programming skill or IT involvement. This investment helps us bring these exciting new capabilities to market faster." "Genius complements CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. systems with real-time information about individual responses to sales and marketing communications," said Mary Coleman, general partner of Walden International. "Genius transforms B2B web sites into personalized customer communications channels that increase sales productivity, customer satisfaction and revenues." About Genius Incorporated(TM) Genius Incorporated provides innovative on-demand customer intelligence solutions that deliver individual web visit data directly to sales and marketing professionals. Genius(TM) solutions empower sales and marketing professionals to instantly qualify prospects, determine the success of marketing initiatives and personalize customer service - all without requiring programming skills or IT involvement. The result is faster sales cycles and more closed deals. Genius Incorporated is a privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. , funded by Emergence Capital and Walden International, with headquarters in San Mateo, California San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the East, and Belmont to the south. . For more information please visit www.genius.com. About Emergence Capital Partners Emergence Capital Partners is a leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage Technology-Enabled Services investing. The firm's mission is to help build market leading, successful businesses in partnership with great entrepreneurs. Emergence partners have funded and helped build over 25 TES TES Times Educational Supplement (publication) TES The Elder Scrolls (series of computer games) TES Thermal Emission Spectrometer TES Teaching Every Student TES Thermal Energy Storage companies, more than any other early-stage venture firm. Having assessed thousands of companies in the TES sector, Emergence Capital has developed significant expertise and resources focused on the critical factors of success in the market. The firm's focus and team-based approach allow it to create unique value for its service-based portfolio companies, which include Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors, Ketera Technologies and Intacct. For further information, visit http://www.emergencecap.com or call 650 573-3100. About Walden International Walden International ("WI") is a leading international venture capital firm that has been providing investors access to early-stage, cross-border, IT opportunities with the advantage of an unrivaled Pan Asia network since 1987. The firm's funds total over US$1.5 billion in committed capital. WI's network of multi-cultural professionals spans China/ Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. With over 100 years of combined experience, WI's investment team has funded leading technology companies including Creative Technology (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on : CREAF CREAF Creative Technology Ltd (stock symbol) CREAF Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals and SGX: C76.SI), Leadis Technology (NASDAQ: LDIS LDIS LEC Data Integration System (Sprint) ), SINA (NASDAQ: SINA), and SMIC SMIC Salaire Minimum Interprofessionnel de Croissance (French: guaranteed minimum wage) SMIC Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (Shanghai) SMIC Side Mount Intercooler (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange : SMI and HKSE HKSE Hong Kong Stock Exchange : 0981.HK). With six offices throughout Asia and the United States, the firm has extensive network relationships with major institutions, Asia governmental entities, strategic investors, and entrepreneurs throughout the Pan Asia region. For information, please visit www.waldenintl.com. |
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