The Venture Codex

Led · Series B · Nov 2010

RealMatch provides advanced job-matching technology and a performance-based recruitment advertising network. The platform is designed to connect employers and job seekers across the web efficiently. The company aims to disrupt the fragmented online recruitment industry. Led by CEO Jonathan Bulkeley and CFO Ezra Sofer, RealMatch intends to use recent funds to expand across its fields of operations and to invest in new products and services. The company closed an additional $8m in venture capital as part of a Series C-1 round. The round was led by Edison Partners with participation from Orix Ventures and Carmel Ventures. RealMatch operates a recruitment ad network of more than 1,000 job sites that helps online publishers monetize their communities. The company uses proprietary ad optimization, targeting, and job-matching technologies to boost ad performance and qualified applicant response rates versus traditional destination job sites. RealMatch sells recruitment advertising and optimization services to publishers and advertisers. Led by CEO Gal Almog, the company plans to accelerate sales and marketing, expand its product offering, and enter new markets. It recently completed a $7M equity financing to support those initiatives. The company is based in New York and Tel-Aviv. RealMatch operates a distributed recruitment ad network that partners with about 1,200 job sites to distribute employment listings. Founded in 2007, the company uses adaptive matching technology called Real-Time Job Matching to improve matches between job seekers and employers. Employers can post jobs across its partner network for free, review a group of matching applicants and resumes for seven days, and purchase the recruitment results under a pay-per-performance model. The company secured $4.7 million in a second-round financing and will use the proceeds to boost sales and marketing efforts in the U.S. In conjunction with the financing RealMatch appointed Marcel Legrand, a former SVP at Monster.com, as chief executive officer. The combination of targeted distribution, performance-based billing and adaptive matching technology is central to its product and commercial strategy.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2009

EnOcean, based in Oberhaching, Germany, develops maintenance-free, battery-free sensor-to-cloud solutions for sustainable IoT. Its products harvest energy from movement, light, or temperature changes using miniaturized energy converters, ultra-low electronics, and radio technology. The company supports open multi-protocol connectivity (EnOcean, Zigbee, Bluetooth, BACnet, Modbus, LON, and IAP) to enable smart buildings, services, and industrial processes. EnOcean’s solutions are used in building automation, smart homes, LED lighting control, and industrial applications to help optimize the CO2 footprint of buildings. It partners with more than 500 product manufacturers and says it has completed installations in more than a million buildings worldwide. Led by CEO Raoul Wijgergangs, EnOcean plans to use the new investment to accelerate growth, develop new sustainable IoT solutions, and widen its market footprint. The article does not disclose financial details of the investment. EnOcean produces maintenance-free wireless sensor solutions for use in buildings and industrial installations. The company said it will use new funding to develop an energy‑autonomous wireless technology and to expand its international market presence. Management indicated the financing will allow intensified sales activities in Europe, North America and Asia and further development of its platform technology. EnOcean currently employs 50 people in Germany and the USA. The company is based in Oberhaching, Germany and serves building and industrial customers with its wireless sensing platform.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2008

Open-Xchange provides open source email, productivity and security software to the service provider industry. Its platform is delivered by over 100 hosting and telecommunications companies and reaches more than 200 million consumer and SMB users. The company employs over 250 specialists, approximately 70% of whom work in development, engineering and technical support. The €21 million funding will be used to grow the talent base and to develop network-side services for DNS and email. Planned product work includes traffic-filtering for malicious activity, parental controls, and a patent-secured email advertising solution powered by Dovecot's IMAP. Open-Xchange aims to broaden relationships with existing partners and win new customers in North America, LATAM and APAC while reinforcing carrier-grade, secure branded experiences for hosters, telcos and cable companies. Open-Xchange builds white‑label email, calendar, contact and task management platforms and powers millions of email accounts for customers such as Liberty Global, Vodafone, KPN and STRATO. The company has 230 employees distributed globally and is moving into the consumer market with a privacy‑focused service called OX.io. OX.io will integrate Qwant search with email, include PGP encryption, and offer 2 GB free email storage plus an additional 2 GB of cloud storage; users can opt into broad advertising categories or choose an ad‑free premium tier. The service is hosted in Berlin and the companies say email and search history will not be tracked, invoking German data‑protection rules. Open-Xchange plans to extend the same privacy options and advertising network to its existing white‑label accounts. To support this push into the spotlight and consumer market, the company raised $5.22 million in venture capital. Open-Xchange builds web-based communication, collaboration and office productivity open-source software and delivers it as software-as-a-service. Earlier this year it launched OX App Suite, an integrated web desktop, and OX Text as part of its OX Documents cloud office suite; spreadsheet and presentation editors are planned within the next 12 months. The company says it has delivered its software as SaaS for six years and is positioned to take advantage of the shift toward cloud office systems. Open-Xchange reports revenue and user-base growth of 50% year-over-year for the past three years and serves 75 clients that reach 80 million end users, including telcos, hosting providers and ISPs. The company plans to use the new funding to invest in software development, professional services, international business development, and marketing and sales. Open-Xchange builds open-source collaboration and email software platforms that support document, calendar and address-book sharing. The company's software can be used on mobile phones. It is based in Tarrytown, N.Y. The article reports a $9 million second-round funding led by German investors. The company previously raised $8.8 million in a first round from Business Angels and BayTech. BayTech participated in both the first and second rounds.