Quartet gets $9 million in funding. (Technology).

Amid relative silence in technology funding, Quartet Service Corporation hit the right note raising $9 million in a third round of financing. OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System) led the round, with additional financing provided by The Longitude Fund, a technology merchant-banking fund managed by Latitude Partners. The funding was provided in two traunches with half provided in August and the final portion earlier this month.

"This funding allows Quartet to expand and improve our support infrastructure and advance continued growth," said Will Kennedy, CEO of Quartet. "Providing the highest level of service as we grow is the, key to Quartet's success."

Quartet has forged a new business model to serve the IT needs of small and midsized businesses. The Quartet model combines in-person proximity with remote support. A customer's experience of Quartet starts with a service desk that can remotely access a customer's computer to repair a problem or answer a question instantly. If problems can't be resolved remotely, Quartet dispatches an InfoConciergo [R], a dedicated technician that's within walking distance of the customer's business to provide rapid in-person response. Customers pay a fixed monthly fee that provides them service desk and in-person support. Quartet also offers strategic IT consulting on what hardware and software businesses should select to maximize productivity. The result is increased business productivity and less downtime for businesses.

"Managed IT outsourcing services have been available to Fortune 100 companies for years. Quartet brings these services to companies with fewer than 1,000 employees," said Tom Eisenhauer, managing partner of Latitude Partners. "Quartet offers the cost savings and IT service improvements that to date have only been available to large companies. We believe Quartet is a smart investment because of its high-growth recurring revenue model. It's extremely rare when you can find a company like Quartet with recurring revenues and growth rates in excess of 100%."

Quartet's growth has been explosive. Profit magazine ranked Quartet number eight among Canadian companies by revenue growth over the last two fiscal years. Quartet hopes to continue this aggressive growth across Canada and the United States by staying focused on the everyday needs of businesses like the TransMarket Group. "Having Quartet has reduced demands on my time by a factor of two," said Marc Gallagher, manager of TransMarket Group's New York office. Lori Jeffrey of Toronto's BonaVista Asset Management agrees, "Quartet frees me up to do the business of the company instead of having to doff."