Real-Time Communication Leader Ikimbo Receives $9.5 Million in Venture Capital.Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers HERNDON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 9, 2001 William Blair
Participation by Cross Atlantic, Draper Atlantic, Exelon Capital Partners, MRW (Mount Rainier ReWritable) See Mount Rainier. Enterprises, Schoffstall Ventures, and Steve Walker & Associates Ikimbo, Inc., a leader in enterprise real-time communication solutions, today announced it has closed third-round financing totaling $9.5 million from several strategic and venture capital investors. The round was lead by William Blair New World Ventures (WBNW), a fund that invests in B2B (Business to Business) Refers to one business communicating with or selling to another. See B2B e-commerce, B2C and B2G. B2B - business to business networking and technology infrastructure companies. Ikimbo plans to use the capital to expand sales and marketing efforts for its flagship software platform, Omniprise(TM), and to continue development of its simple, secure, and flexible real-time communication solutions. Cross Atlantic, Draper Atlantic, Exelon Capital Partners, MRW Enterprises, Riggs Capital Investment, Schoffstall Ventures, and Steve Walker & Associates also provided funding. "We are very pleased with the level of funding and the caliber of investors we have been able to secure in this round," said Edwin Miller, Ikimbo's 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. and president. "Given the current economic climate, our investors' enthusiasm speaks volumes for Omniprise solutions and our market opportunity." "Ikimbo is poised to 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>. the growing demand for secure `anytime, anywhere' communication as companies of all types and sizes look for every possible competitive edge," said J.B. Pritzker, managing director of the WBNW fund. "Omniprise has already established itself in very demanding customer environments. Ikimbo's CEO is a proven leader and builder of companies, and the company's technology addresses a real market need. Ikimbo has the whole package and we're excited to be the lead backer." Omniprise accelerates business communication by instantly connecting across the enterprise and beyond, to include clients, partners, customers and suppliers. Operating across the firewall, Omniprise brings groups together in real time for secure distributed decision making. Omniprise has an innovative architecture that provides real time communication within the environment of existing applications like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) An integrated information system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or for one customer. , CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. and MRP (Material Requirements Planning) An information system that determines what assemblies must be built and what materials must be procured in order to build a unit of equipment by a certain date. . About Ikimbo Ikimbo(TM) is accelerating business communication with Omniprise(TM), a simple, secure and flexible real-time communications platform that provides an extensible set of communications tools - such as instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or and conferencing, file sharing Copying files from one computer to another. See peer-to-peer network, file sharing protocol and file and printer sharing. and transfer, presence detection, and wireless access - integrated with enterprise-class applications. Ikimbo also offers comprehensive services to assist clients in planning, implementation, and integration. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Herndon, Virginia Herndon is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population was 21,655 at the 2000 census, which makes it the largest of three towns in the county.[1] History , Ikimbo employs approximately 60 people. Ikimbo's venture partners are Cross Atlantic, Draper Atlantic, Excelon Capital Partners, MRW Capital, Ptek, Schoffstall Ventures, and Steve Walker & Associates, and William Blair New World Ventures. About William Blair New World Ventures, L.P. William Blair New World Ventures is an $80 million venture capital fund created through a strategic alliance between William Blair Capital Partners, L.L.C., William Blair & Co. and New World Ventures. The fund, led by New World Ventures Managing Directors J.B. Pritzker, Chris Girgenti and Lisa Flashner, invests in early-stage B2B, networking and technology infrastructure companies. WBNW's previous investments include JobsOnline, Inc., Bulkmarkets.com, and Ignite Sports Media, Inc. New World Ventures is a Chicago-based venture capital firm that has invested in early-stage technology companies since 1996. New World Ventures Investors I, L.P. was the firm's second fund and WBNW is the firm's third. New World Ventures' investment portfolio includes Away.com, eCollege.com (Nasdaq:ECLG), Eppraisals.com, Tavve Software Company, Active.com and others. For more information visit www.newworldvc.com. Note to Editors: The name Ikimbo is one word, with an upper-case I. |
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