Restaurantpro Secures $29 Million in Series C Financing; Expands Mission and Adopts New Corporate Name.Business Editors/Food and High-Tech Writers SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 2000 Leveraging Strong Alliances, Newly Named CriticalArc Technologies, Inc. Redefines 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 in Highly Fragmented frag·ment n. 1. A small part broken off or detached. 2. An incomplete or isolated portion; a bit: overheard fragments of their conversation; extant fragments of an old manuscript. 3. and Dynamic Industries Restaurantpro(TM), the premier application platform developer and hosted service provider for the $376 billion foodservice industry, today announced closure of $29 million in Series C financing. The funding will be used for continued development of its hosted back office applications and the continued expansion of its operations. The company also announced the adoption of a new corporate name, CriticalArc Technologies, Inc.(TM), representing an expansion of its business scope to include the development and hosting of enterprise solutions that streamline business processes for and between trading partners in dynamic industries, such as foodservice. Restaurantpro, the company's flagship product A primary product of a company, which is typically why the company was founded and/or what made it well known. For example, MS-DOS, Windows and the Microsoft Office suite have been flagship products of Microsoft. CorelDRAW is a flagship product of Corel Corporation. , will remain the branded interface for high-end, independent restaurants and the distributors that service them. The Series C financing round was led by Rembrandt Venture Partners and included investments from Deutsche Banc Alex Brown Alex Brown may refer to:
Bank of America (NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648 ) is the largest commercial bank in the United States in terms of deposits, and the largest company of its kind in the world. and others. Series B investors Caanan Partners, Commerce One Ventures, Boulder Boulder, city, United States Boulder, city (1990 pop. 83,312), seat of Boulder co., N central Colo.; inc. 1871. A Rocky Mountain resort and a suburb of Denver, it is the seat of the Univ. of Colorado (1876). Ventures, Advent International Advent International - a long-established and leading global private equity investor Background Advent was founded in 1984 by Peter Brooke and Clint Harris to focus on international private equity investing. and Catamount catamount: see puma. Ventures also participated in this round. "This round of financing represents a significant milestone for our company and is a powerful endorsement of our core vision: to create a broad-based, premium application platform by connecting the dots between foodservice trading partners," said CriticalArc President and Chief Executive Officer Christopher Hemmeter. "Our new and existing shareholders believe in our core strategy and in our broad mission to develop enterprise solutions that streamline transactions between trading partners in large, fragmented industries, like foodservice." In addition to fortifying its position with restaurant operators, CriticalArc is developing network applications for foodservice distributors A foodservice distributor is a company that provides food and non-food products to restaurants, cafeterias, industrial caterers, and hospitals and nursing homes. A foodservice distributor functions as an intermediary between food manufacturers and the foodservice operator and suppliers. The company is currently the only platform developer in the B2B space to deploy cutting edge integration technologies that enable small, specialty distributors to display product pricing, availability and promotional information to their customers over the Internet in real-time. A host of technical products and services for foodservice trading partners are slated for announcement in the coming months. B2B Momentum In a category that has been much maligned ma·lign tr.v. ma·ligned, ma·lign·ing, ma·ligns To make evil, harmful, and often untrue statements about; speak evil of. adj. 1. Evil in disposition, nature, or intent. 2. by investors this year, the CriticalArc financing stands out as a rarity. "Early investor euphoria An interpreted programming language developed in 1993 by Robert Craig at Rapid Deployment Software that is noted for its execution speed, flexibility and simplicity. It can simulate any programming method including object-oriented constructs. for anything B2B is being replaced by calculated investments in companies that play at the core of industry trade," said Chuck Donchess, chief strategy officer of Commerce One, the leader in global e-commerce solutions for business and an investor in CriticalArc. "By integrating its domain expertise in the foodservice industry with its solid strategic partnerships and the Commerce One technology engine, we believe CriticalArc is building a powerful B2B enterprise." Other investors agree with Donchess. "At Deutsche Banc Alex Brown, we have looked at every player in the foodservice space. Of all our B2B investments this year, we see CriticalArc as having the strongest combination of team, partners, technology and customer value proposition," said Jim Moore, managing director of Deutsche Banc Alex Brown. "Building defendable e-hubs in highly fragmented dynamic industries is a great challenge and opportunity to create long-term value. We believe that CriticalArc is positioned to succeed at the task in foodservice and to extend those learnings into other industries." A New Name -- The next step in executing the vision The adoption of CriticalArc Technologies, Inc. as its new name represents a step forward in the company's overall mission to create value to all trading partners in the foodservice supply chain by delivering mission critical business applications and services via the Internet. As CriticalArc, the company's future plans include servicing other industries with supply chain dynamics that are similar to those seen in foodservice. The name "CriticalArc" was chosen for its symbolic reference. "Critical" refers to the mission critical nature of the company's business applications and its focus on the core bill-of-materials portion of the industry supply chain. "Arc" symbolizes the fusing In electrophotography, making the toner adhere permanently to the paper. Heat fusing melts the toner, which is pressed into the paper. Cold fusing presses the toner into the paper without applying any heat. Flash fusing melts the toner with light, and no heat or pressure is used. energy that is formed between related points, like the arc of electricity that forms between charged electrodes Electrodes Tiny wires in adhesive pads that are applied to the body for ECG measurement. Mentioned in: Electrocardiography . About CriticalArc Technologies, Inc. CriticalArc is a privately held enterprise application platform developer and hosted service provider that streamlines transactions between trading partners in highly fragmented and dynamic industries. Currently marketed as Restaurantpro for restaurants in the foodservice industry, the company's applications are designed to drive efficiencies into the supply chain, helping customers to increase profitability. The company was selected by Red Herring Red Herring A preliminary registration statement that must be filed with the SEC describing a new issue of stock (IPO) and the prospects of the issuing company. Notes: magazine as one of the "Ten to Watch" companies in 2000. CriticalArc has strategic alliances with Bank of America, Commerce One, Open Table, eSkye and chefstore.com, and plans to announce further agreements in coming weeks. The company's board of directors includes John V. Balen from Canaan Partners, Peter Roshko from Boulder Ventures, Jed Smith from Catamount Ventures, Rick Federico from P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc., Greg Eaton from Rembrandt Venture Partners and Christopher R. Hemmeter. The CriticalArc site can be viewed at www.criticalarc.com. The company's independent restaurant product can be viewed at www.restaurantpro.com. Forward Looking Statements The foregoing paragraphs include forward-looking statements forward-looking statement A projected financial statement based on management expectations. A forward-looking statement involves risks with regard to the accuracy of assumptions underlying the projections. within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements include the statement concerning the ability of CriticalArc to integrate its domain expertise in the foodservice industry with its strategic partnerships and the Commerce One technology engine to build a powerful B2B enterprise. Actual results may differ materially from those described in such statements as a result of a number of factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, the ability of the parties to execute on their plans, the cooperation of the parties, unexpected operational difficulties, actual efficiencies and economies of scale may not be as pronounced as those anticipated by the parties, a general downturn in economic conditions, and intense and increasing competition in the market. For a discussion of these and other risk factors that could affect Commerce One's business, see "Risk Factors" in Commerce One's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 10-K Form 10-K A report required by the SEC from exchange-listed companies that provides for annual disclosure of certain financial information. Form 10-K See 10-K. for the year ended December 31, 1999 and its quarterly report on Form 10-Q Form 10-Q See 10-Q. for the quarter ended June 30, 2000. Note to Editors: Restaurantpro and CriticalArc are trademarks of CriticalArc Technologies, Inc. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion