Fall 2008 | Commonwealth Capital Ventures Newsletter
Greetings!
Welcome to the Fall 2008 edition of the Commonwealth Capital Ventures Newsletter. Over the
course of the summer and early fall we have stayed busy finding and investing in
great companies, including four new ones detailed below.
There is also much to
report from the dynamic and growing companies in our portfolio. Me.dium
and SoundBite Communications both announced new product offerings, while
Constant Contact, Copanion, and Reval earned awards recognizing innovation,
best practices, and executive leadership.
Also, if you have
not yet had a chance to visit our newly designed website, www.commonwealthvc.com,
be sure to check out the new content areas on the site. Some of these include a
new "Approach" section outlining our views on making investments, a
"Portfolio Careers" section featuring job opportunities at our
portfolio companies, and a new "Press Room" offering convenient
downloads for the media.
All the best,
The Commonwealth Capital Ventures Team
|
 |
|
New Investments
|
 Expressor Software: Commonwealth led a $10M Series B round for Expressor Software, a Burlington, MA based provider of semantic data integration software to large and midsized companies. By building a semantic data integration engine based on common business terms, Expressor's software gives customers high performance and easy-to-use data integration that is extremely affordable relative to existing solutions on the market. Previous investors Globespan Capital Partners and Sigma Partners also participated in the Series B round. Justin Perreault has joined the board of directors.
Click Here for the Press Release
 First Coverage:
Commonwealth led a $9M Series B round for First Coverage. Based in both Toronto and Boston, First Coverage provides software-based tools that increase efficiency and communications within the institutional investment community. The company's "alpha capture" system lets money managers track performance of ideas pitched by hundreds of brokerage salespeople and analysts. This system takes a more scientific approach to the traditionally haphazard process of allocating commissions to brokers. More important, the system helps investors find the outsiders who deliver "alpha," which is the Wall Street term for market-beating returns. The other firms in the investment syndicate were GrandBanks Capital and Toronto-based JLA Ventures. Jeffrey Hurst has joined the
board of directors.
Click Here for the Press Release
 My Perfect Gig:
Commonwealth co-led a $6.5M Series A round for My Perfect Gig, a Lexington, MA based recruiting software company that provides skills-based matching intelligence products for both job seekers and employers. The company is initially focused on computer, electronic, and semiconductor engineering functions, but will expand to other occupations and industries during the course of 2008. This start-up round was co-led by North Bridge Venture Partners. Elliot Katzman has joined My Perfect Gig's board of directors.
Click Here for the Press Release
 The Echo Nest:
Commonwealth led the first round of venture funding for The Echo Nest, a Somerville, MA based provider of intelligent digital music applications for online music companies. The Echo Nest's "Musical Brain" machine learning platform combines large-scale web crawling, data mining, language processing, and audio analysis to radically improve music search, recommendation and interactivity. Commonwealth was joined in this round by The Echo Nest's new and returning angel backers. Elliot Katzman has joined the board of directors.
Click Here for the Press Release
|
| |
| Portfolio Company News |
|
 Constant Contact's CEO, Gail Goodman, received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the YearŽ 2008 Award in the software category in New England. The award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic, growing businesses.
|
 Copanion won the CPA Technology Advisor magazine 2008 Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Award for its tax document automation solution, GruntWorx™. The product provides a highly accurate, affordable solution for scanning and organizing tax documents. The Innovation Awards honor advances in technologies that benefit accounting and tax professionals. |
 Medium launched Social Search, a "crowd-powered" offering enabling users to find relevant information based on the current surfing activity of others. It surfaces news, reviews, pictures, and videos popular at the time of search and also employs Yahoo's Build Your Own Search (BOSS) open web services platform to return general, non-popularity sensitive search results.
|
 Reval was recognized at Treasury Today's Adam Smith Awards for Best Practice and Innovation ceremony, held in London. The company won the "Highly Commended" designation in the Bright SOX Award for Good Corporate Governance. The awards recognize innovative solutions that achieve improved efficiency, exceptional implementation, and significant cost savings.
 SoundBite Communications elected Eileen Rudden to its board of directors. The company also announced its Intelligent Communications Platform, an integrated, multi-channel solution offering automated voice, text, and email messaging through an easy-to-use web interface that enables clients to seamlessly communicate with customers across multiple devices and channels.
|
| |
Partner Viewpoints
|
In a recent bylined article and media interview, Commonwealth partners Mike Fitzgerald and Justin Perreault shared their views on investing. Mike authored an article on market timing that appeared in Mass High Tech and Justin was interviewed for a BNET blog on the state of high tech venture capital. We have provided links to the full texts of the articles.
Market Timing, Cost Control is Key to Winning VC Investments
By Mike Fitzgerald For venture capitalists, the name of the game is betting on startup investments that take advantage of market opportunity. In deciding whether to invest, VCs need foresight to predict areas that will be hot, not now, but several years down the line. Importantly, they also need a thorough understanding of market timing, development and return potential.
Read Full Text of the Article
The State of High Tech VC, an Interview with Justin Perreault
Occasionally there are technology innovations that are profound and generate whole ecosystems. There are obvious ones like the PC's emergence and the Internet in the mid-90s. But Web 2.0 was in my view an amalgamation of next-gen development tools, technologies, and techniques, all of which were helpful and useful, but in and of themselves were not a wave that creates an ecosystem.
Read Full Text of the Interview |
| |
Contact Information:
Commonwealth Capital Ventures
Bay Colony Corporate Ctr.
950 Winter Street
Suite 4100
Waltham, MA 02451 | | |
|
|
|
 |
| Commonwealth Capital Ventures is a leading venture capital firm focused on software & services, Internet & digital media, communications & wireless, and instruments & systems investments. Since its inception in 1995, the firm has invested in roughly 140 high-growth companies. Commonwealth currently manages more than $580 million of committed capital across four funds. To learn more about our team, click here. | |
 |
General Partners
|
 |
|
|
We developed this newsletter using a web-based application
from Constant Contact, a Commonwealth Capital Ventures
portfolio company.
To easily create, deliver, and manage email marketing campaigns,
visit the Constant Contact website for a free trial.
|
|
|
|
