OpenSales Raises $10 Million in Series A Financing
May 2nd, 03:05 UTC
Open Source E-commerce Software Pioneer Funded by
idealab Capital Partners, idealab! and Sanchez Capital Partners
SAN MATEO, CA--May 2, 2000--OpenSales, Inc., the leading provider of open source e-commerce solutions, today announced that it has secured $10 million in Series A financing. Participating in the round were idealab Capital Partners (ICP), idealab! and Sanchez Capital Partners. The company was founded in September 1998, open-sourced its product line in November 1999 and is scheduled to release the first commercial versions of its software this month.
"We are very enthusiastic about the prospects for OpenSales as we believe that open source development will come to dominate most software categories," said Jim Armstrong, managing director at ICP. "The management team at OpenSales understands the open source process leads to better and faster software and is executing wonderfully upon an aggressive plan of defining the e-commerce space."
OpenSales is the provider of OpenSales Core Commerce, a freely available platform for the complete management of e-commerce sites. The software, which runs on Linux, UNIX and Windows NT, is designed to allow the easy management of content, pricing, inventory, ordering and statistical information. OpenSales Core Commerce also works with any major database to manage thousands of transactions per second on inexpensive clusters of systems. To maximize use of the product, OpenSales offers a range of installation and customization options along with ongoing customer support. Other services provided by the company that allow the creation of revenue-ready Web sites include project management, system architecture consulting, pre-launch hosting and customized security. The production version of OpenSales Core Commerce is slated for release later this month.
"OpenSales' pioneering efforts to bring the open source model to e-commerce applications allows the company to keep pace with the immediacy demanded by an Internet-driven economy," said Howard Morgan, vice chairman of idealab! "New features and capabilities required by customers can be easily folded into the core product, providing customers with a supportable configuration--while preventing never-ending consulting projects typical of applications installations."
"OpenSales is at the nexus of several major trends in high technology:
Open source, electronic commerce and Linux," said Trey Traviesa, partner at Sanchez Capital Partners. "With its customized, flexible and scalable e-commerce software solutions, we believe that OpenSales is extremely well positioned to benefit from the rapidly growing acceptance of open source applications."
According to a recent Merrill Lynch Capital Markets report in which 50 CIOs nationwide were surveyed, almost one third of respondents said they were considering open source software. More support for the OpenSales business model can be found in a recent Forrester Research report that foresees tremendous growth in e-commerce applications. According to the report, 4% of all applications are currently e-commerce specific--but will rise to reach 35% of the total application space by 2003.
"This additional funding will allow us to better serve our customers and aggressively expand our business," said Bonnie Crater, president and CEO of OpenSales. "Because the Internet is still in its infancy--only 2% of all transactions worldwide now occur online--we are well positioned to take advantage of this rapidly growing market with the upcoming release of the OpenSales Core Commerce product."
About idealab! Capital Partners
idealab Capital Partners (www.icp.com) is a nationally focused venture capital firm affiliated with idealab!, a leading creator and operator of Internet businesses. A leader in early stage venture financing of technology companies, ICP `s $350 million second fund and $100 million first fund have invested in dozens of technology startups. These include many firms created within idealab!, such as GoTo.com, eToys and CarsDirect.com, and more traditional startups such as NetZero, RealNames and MP3.com. ICP was founded in 1998 by Bill Elkus and Bill Gross, and its limited partners include the investment entities of MIT, Caltech, The State of Michigan, The State of California, Goldman Sachs, Moore Capital, Horsley Bridge and HarbourVest.
About idealab!
idealab! (www.idealab.com) creates, builds and operates Internet businesses that satisfy unmet market needs. Founded in March 1996 by Bill Gross, idealab generates ideas for new Internet businesses and creates, capitalizes and establishes a separate company to conduct each new business. Actively participating in the ongoing operations of its network companies through board representation, information sharing and facilitating collaboration among the companies, idealab! also recruits management to oversee day-to-day operations and to concentrate on the rapid execution of the business plan. Additionally, idealab! provides each operating company strategic guidance as well as assistance in sales, marketing and brand management, executive recruiting, Web development and information technology, and legal, finance, accounting and human resources. idealab! public companies include eToys (Nasdaq:
ETYS), GoTo.com (Nasdaq: GOTO), CitySearch (Nasdaq: TMCS), NetZero (Nasdaq: NZRO) and Tickets.com (Nasdaq: TIXX). idealab! is headquartered in Pasadena, California and has offices in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and London.
About Sanchez Capital Partners
Based in Austin, Texas, Sanchez Capital Partners (www.sanchezcp.com) was founded In July of 1999, to be a new source of high value-added private equity capital for early stage internet entrepreneurs. With $30 million in capital under management and a strong team in place, SCP has already helped numerous Internet companies advance toward growth and market leadership.
About OpenSales, Inc.
OpenSales, Inc. is the leading provider of open source e-commerce applications. The San Mateo-based Company is the developer of OpenSales Core Commerce, a freely available and platform-independent software solution that processes thousands of Web transactions per second on inexpensive clusters of systems. For rapid deployment, OpenSales offers a range of installation, customization and support services. For more information, visit www.opensales.com.
All trademarks of products and technologies mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.
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(Submitted by Paul Carlstrom of Zelerate)
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