Press Release
| realmarket.com |
|
Directory Suppliers Associations Publications Stock Index News Search Home Calendar of Events Find event | Submit event Career Corner Find job | Submit job RealMarket Today! Past Issues Subscribe Unsubscribe |
|
Company Profile Company Web Site |
Synchrony Communications' $27 Million Investment Led by GE Equity
Vignette and West Teleservices Become Investors and Partners; Earlier Round Investors Patricof & Co., Charles River Ventures and Great American Insurance Increase Funding Vignette and West Teleservices Become Investors and Partners; Earlier Round Investors Patricof & Co., Charles River Ventures and Great American Insurance Increase Funding
CINCINNATI - August 14, 2000 - Synchrony Communications Inc., first to market with an integrated customer interaction management suite, today announced the completion of venture financing totaling $27 million. The financing was led by GE Equity, a GE Capital company, and includes funding from Vignette Corporation and West TeleServices, as well as Synchrony's existing investors, Patricof & Co. Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Great American Insurance. Combined with earlier funding, Synchrony has raised more than $40 million in equity capital to date.Synchrony will use proceeds from the new investment for continued expansion of marketing and sales activities, product development, and international initiatives. In addition, the company plans to launch its "Hosted Anywhere" licensed offering this quarter, which will position it as the market leader in interaction value chain management. Over the past year, Synchrony has signed more than 50 new customers and has grown revenues more than 500 percent. According to Synchrony CEO and founder Mark Richey, the investment led by GE is a vote of confidence in the value of Internet infrastructure technology.
"Attracting a significant investment from such diverse established and successful companies validates Synchrony's philosophy that there is no such thing as an e-business or an i-business - competitive, successful businesses strategically embrace the Internet as a component of doing business," Richey said. "You can't get hype past investors of this caliber - they've tested and evaluated our product and team, and they recognize that Synchrony is enabling a wide variety of companies to interact with their customers and other stakeholders in an Internet-driven world."
Trevor Kienzle, vice president of GE Equity, led the investment and has become a member of Synchrony's Board of Directors. "In Synchrony we've found a seasoned management team, a strong product in a growing industry, and a solid customer list. We've looked at potential investments in several companies in the customer interaction management space and we believe Synchrony's interaction management suite provides an excellent integration between communication channels. Its remote-hosted model and Java-based technology should set the standard for this market."
Vignette, West Offer More Than Funding
Vignette Corporation, a leading supplier of e-business applications for building online businesses, is also investing in Synchrony. In addition, Synchrony and Vignette are working together to integrate Synchrony's customer interaction management suite with Vignette's V/5 eBusiness Platform.
"Vignette's strategy is to partner selectively with world-class organizations that can directly support our growing customer base," said Bill Daniel, vice president of Business Development for Vignette Corporation. "Together, Synchrony and Vignette will help companies leverage the power of the Internet by enabling them to understand how a customer or partner interaction affects the entire operation."
A leading provider of fully integrated customer care solutions, West TeleServices Corporation has also entered into a strategic relationship with Synchrony. "West has been working with the Synchrony team and their technology products for the past year. Our investment in this strategic relationship furthers our commitment to Synchrony and our belief in the CRM marketplace," commented Thomas B. Barker, president and CEO, West TeleServices. "Synchrony's technology gives us another valuable tool to provide consistent, dynamic customer support that successfully resolves customer issues as quickly as possible."
Using Synchrony's technology, West's customer service representatives manage a single view of each customer, regardless of the communications channel (e-mail, voice, chat or FAX) through which the customer accesses the West representative. "West continues to be a leader in customer management services for Fortune 500 and E-100 companies worldwide. This relationship enhances the integrated suite of services West offers to its clients," Barker said.
Cincinnati-based Great American Insurance also helped finance this round with Synchrony's other existing investors, Patricof & Co. Ventures, based in New York, and Charles River Ventures, based in Boston. "The Internet revolution impacted the insurance industry earlier and with greater effect than nearly any other industry," said Doug Marcian, Executive Vice President of Great American's American Money Management venture subsidiary. "We are pleased to have been an early investor in this company."
Synchrony's Interaction Value Chain Management™ Integrates Interactions while Merging Procurement and Supply Chain Events Synchrony's Customer Interaction Value Chain Management ™ software suite integrates and queues customer, supplier, partner and employee interactions across various channels of communication - phone, fax, e-mail and Web chat. This provides contact center agents with a single, synchronized view of each interaction, enabling them to provide better service.
Synchrony delivers its solution as a subscription service via the Internet, which dramatically reduces implementation costs and time, and eliminates the risks of traditional customer relationship management (CRM) investments. Because Synchrony is remote hosted, customer service demands do not impact site infrastructure. And, in times of peak demand, adding customer service agents is as simple as adding a PC with an Internet connection and a telephone. Synchrony assumes total responsibility for the solution.
Version 2.0 of Synchrony's customer interaction management solution was released in June at Sun Microsystems' JavaOneSM conference. Synchrony offers the only customer management software architected completely with Sun's Enterprise JavaBeans™ (EJB) and Java™ 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), making it the most integrated and scalable option available. Synchrony solution 2.0 is also the first to market with universal queuing of customer interactions, regardless of the communications channel.
Synchrony will launch its "Hosted Anywhere" licensed offering this quarter, providing clients with a premises-based option. Through integration with top eCommerce solution providers, such as Vignette, and supply chain solutions, including Yantra and OrderTrust, Synchrony intends to lead the interaction value chain management market.
About GE Equity
GE Equity is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric, with more than 100 investment professionals in 13 cities on five continents. GE is a diversified services, technology and manufacturing company with a commitment to achieving customer success and worldwide leadership in each of its businesses. For more information about GE Equity, visit the company's Web site at www.geequity.com.
About Vignette Corporation Vignette Corporation (Nasdaq: VIGN) is the leading supplier of eBusiness applications. Vignette's products enable businesses to create and extend relationships with prospects and customers and ease high-volume transaction exchanges with supplier and partners, all of which enhances customer satisfaction. Vignette powers more than 1,000 leading eBusinesses. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Vignette Corporation has offices located throughout Europe, Asia, and in Australia and can be found on the Web at (www.vignette.com).
About West Teleservices West Teleservices Corporation is a leading provider of innovative, full-service customer care solutions that help Fortune 500 and E-100 companies acquire, retain and grow profitable customer relationships. West has the technology and experience needed to create customized solutions that work for both e-Business initiatives and traditional business ventures. West's customer contact solutions incorporate live agent and automated services using the latest in voice and Internet technology. Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, West has a team of approximately 24,000 employees, including an IT staff of over 750, operating 27 state-of-the-art contact centers and seven interactive automated voice and data processing centers across North America.
About Great American Insurance Company
Great American Insurance Company, founded in 1872 and based in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a member of the Great American Property and Casualty Insurance Group, the 27th largest property/casualty insurance group in the United States based on 1999 premiums. American Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: AFG), Great American's parent company, is engaged primarily in private passenger automobile and specialty property and casualty insurance businesses and in the sale of retirement annuities, life, supplemental health and long-term care insurance products.
About Patricof & Co. Ventures
Patricof & Co. Ventures, Inc. is the U.S. member of Apax Partners, a global private investment firm with offices in New York, Philadelphia, Palo Alto, London, Leeds, Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Tel-Aviv, Tokyo and Zurich. Its team of more than 130 investment professionals manages more than $7 billion worldwide for leading institutional investors. With more than 30 years of direct investing experience, Patricof & Co. Ventures provides long-term equity financing to build growth companies in a wide range of industries, including B2B e-commerce, information technology, telecommunications, healthcare, business-to-business services, consumer and retail.
About Charles River Ventures
Charles River Ventures (www.crv.net) is one of the nation's leading early-stage venture capital firms. The firm invests in data communications and e-commerce companies that form the cornerstones of the Internet economy. Charles River helps build companies that define and dominate important categories by providing the corporate development guidance, expertise and experience necessary to help them move swiftly and decisively to execute on their bold visions. Since its founding in 1970, Charles River has organized ten funds totaling over $1 billion and has provided capital and guidance to more than 250 companies. Trademark investments include industry-leading companies such as Be Free (Nasdaq: BFRE), CIENA (Nasdaq: CIEN), Excite (Nasdaq: ATHM), iBasis (Nasdaq: IBAS), net.Genesis (Nasdaq: NTGX), SpeechWorks (Nasdaq: SPWX), Sonus (Nasdaq: SONS), Versata (Nasdaq: VATA), and Vignette (Nasdaq: VIGN). Throughout the past decade, Charles River funds have been among the industry's highest performing funds according to Venture Economics, a division of Thomson Financial Securities Data that covers investment, exit and performance activity in the private equity industry.
About Synchrony Communications
Established in 1997, Synchrony Communications was first to market with integrated customer interaction management for online and brick-and-mortar consumer and business-to-business companies worldwide. Named 1999 Product of the Year by C@ll Center CRM Solutions and Communications Solutions magazines, Synchrony's solution integrates and queues customer interactions across multiple channels of communication - phone, fax, email and chat. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Synchrony has been named one of the top 100 emerging companies to watch in 2000 by Computerworld magazine. Learn more on the Internet at www.synchrony.net.
Editorial Contact:
Heather Valento
Northlich Public Relations
(513) 762-1726
hvalento@northlich.com
top of page
© 2000 Real Market Research Corporation. Real Market is a registered trademark.