Greylock Partners Israel Leads a $10 Million Investment Round in Webcollage
WebCollage, a leading content exchange for manufacturers and their business partners, today announced that the company has secured $10 million in new financing. The proceeds will accelerate expansion of product platform and global growth.
New York, NY (Vocus) March 24, 2008 –-
WebCollage, a leading content exchange for manufacturers and their business partners, today announced that the company has secured $10 million in new financing. This round was lead by new investor Greylock Partners Israel with participation from existing investors Sierra Ventures, Cedar Fund and Gilde IT Fund and brings the total investment in the company to more than $45 million. WebCollage will use the capital to accelerate the development of its on-demand service and to expand globally.
"During the past year we have seen a rapid increase in the number of manufacturers eager to extend the breadth and depth of their online marketing reach and interaction with customers. WebCollage’s patented solution enables manufacturers to increase sales by 6% -15% by automating the exchange of Web marketing with business partners while uniquely addressing manufacturers’ requirements for ensuring brand consistency and providing richer, more interactive online merchandising experiences for their end customers," said Yuda Doron, CEO of WebCollage.
"As we looked at whether to self-fund or accelerate our growth with new investment, we chose to go with Greylock -- a partner with an impressive track record of building successful companies and whose investment will enable WebCollage to immediately take full advantage of all available product line extensions and market growth opportunities," Doron continued.
"At a time when online marketing and advertising programs are rapidly proliferating, WebCollage offers a unique, transformative solution that allows manufacturers to engage with their customers directly at the point of product research and purchase," said Yoram Snir, Partner at Greylock Partners Israel and new WebCollage Board Member. "Moreover, we believe that with its proven ROI, its rapidly growing network of 750 top ecommerce sites and its more than 75 leading global brand clients, WebCollage is poised to become the premier online content exchange for online marketing and sales programs."
With this new investment, Yoram Snir will join WebCollage’s Board of Directors and Laurel Bowden, a London-based Partner with Greylock Partners Israel, will help guide WebCollage’s European expansion.
As a SaaS marketing solution, there is no software for WebCollage clients to install or maintain in order to exchange marketing content with business partners. WebCollage’s solution opens an automated pipeline, between manufacturers’ websites and their business partners’ websites, through which Web marketing and advertising are seamlessly delivered. As manufacturers update and change their marketing messages, WebCollage keeps partners’ websites synchronized -- driving measurable increases in online and offline sales and ensuring that customers have access to the most up-to-date and accurate marketing information no matter where they research and buy goods.
Forrester Research’s recent February 2008 report: B2B CMO Investment Priorities for 2008 included four recommended investment priorities for marketing executives, one of which was to "give partners new ways to hook into your online systems." Forrester states that B2B CMOs should, "automate data exchange between partner ecosystems to keep distributors, resellers, and suppliers on message and to reduce wasted sales time and sales costs. Technology that offers lightweight integration, like WebCollage’s content syndication software service, is faster and cheaper to implement than full-blown content management systems."
About Greylock Partners
Founded in 1965, Greylock Partners is one of the world's leading venture capital firms. Over the past 43 years, Greylock has funded and helped build several hundred successful companies. The Greylock approach uniquely puts the entrepreneur first, with Greylock working as an "invited guest" in a highly supportive yet consultative way to help entrepreneurs build market-leading companies. Companies Greylock has funded include Ascend Communications, Continental Cable, Data Domain, Decru, DoubleClick, Internet Security Systems, Legato, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Openwave, Red Hat, RightNow, Tellabs, Trilogy and Wily Technology.. Companies Greylock has funded in Israel include Imperva, PortAuthority, Red Bend, Siliquent Technologies, Aeroscout, Camero, MySuprmarket. com, Celeno and Zend Technologies. Greylock's offices are located in Silicon Valley, the Boston area, Israel and India. For more information, please visit www. greylock. com.
About Sierra Ventures
Sierra Ventures, founded in 1982, is a privately held venture capital firm focused on investments across all areas of the Information Technology sector from semiconductors to enterprise software. Sierra Ventures has managed nine venture capital partnerships and currently has more than $1.5 billion of capital under management. Some of the firm’s investments include 360Commerce (acquired by Oracle), Active Software (acquired by WebMethods), AmeriGroup (AGP), Authentec (AUTH),Centex (acquired by WorldCom), ConvergeNet (acquired by Dell), FatBrain (acquired by Barnes & Noble), Frontbridge (acquired by Microsoft), Healtheon (merged with WebMD), Interact Commerce (acquired by Sage), Intuit (INTU), Micromuse (acquired by IBM), OnAssignment (ASGN), OnLink (acquired by Siebel), Quinta (acquired by Seagate), StrataCom (acquired by Cisco), Sourcefire (FIRE), Sychip (acquired by Murata Manufacturing) and Teradata (acquired by NCR). More information is available at http://www. sierraventures. com (http://www. sierraventures. com).
About Cedar Fund
Cedar Fund is a venture capital firm, investing in high technology companies. Cedar Fund seeks to invest in outstanding entrepreneurs pursuing high growth markets with distinguished technologies in the telecommunications, networking, Internet-infrastructure and enterprise software areas. While the fund invests in all stages, it specializes in early stage, Israel-related situations, including Pre-Seed®, seed and first round, where it believes its strategy and capabilities offer the greatest potential. With its quality investment track record and over $225 million under management, Cedar Fund is among the largest and most notable venture capital firms focusing on Israel-related, early stage investments.
About Gilde IT Fund
Gilde IT Fund is an international venture capital fund, focused on providing world-wide funding and support to software, communications and internet companies in various stages of development. With more than 100 investments in the IT industry in Europe, the U. S. and Israel, Gilde IT Fund has distinguished itself among other venture capital firms with its entrepreneurial and long-standing track-record in building leading international IT enterprises. Past investments include No Wires Needed, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Docent, MatrixOne, Seagull, and Skybernet. More information is available at www. gilde. nl.
About WebCollage, Inc.
WebCollage is the leading Web content exchange for manufacturers and their business partners. Using WebCollage's patented, turnkey solution, manufacturers can extend their Web product marketing content to all of their business partners and address the challenge of how to optimize the selling and marketing of products via the Web. WebCollage benefits manufacturers and business partners alike with measurable bottom-line results including higher conversion rates and larger overall order sizes. Founded in 2000, WebCollage is a privately-held company headquartered in New York, NY, and backed by Sierra Ventures, Cedar Fund, GSI Commerce, Inc., and Gilde IT Fund. For more information, please visit: www. webcollage. com or call 1.212.563.2112.
Media Contact:
Dennis O’Connor (for WebCollage)
Paradigm Communications
Phone: (781) 530-3700
Cell: (781) 883-5109
Dennis. oconnor @ paradigmshiftpr. com
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