The Venture Codex

Participated · Series B · Apr 2013

Booker provides an end-to-end SaaS platform that helps service-focused SMBs manage scheduling, CRM, point-of-sale payment processing, marketing and loyalty programs, and analytics. The company offers vertical-specific configurations, originally serving spas and salons and later expanding into beauty, home improvement, and other professional services. Customers typically generate $250,000 to $1 million in revenue and pay roughly $100–$150 per month depending on configuration and features. Booker processes large transaction volumes — it processed more than $2 billion last year, is handling over 3 million bookings a month, and had more than $200 million transacted on the platform last month. Booker also provides marketing services that connect businesses with customers (taking a small fee) and enables instant booking across SMB websites, mobile, Facebook pages, and third-party sites. With the new funding Booker plans to expand into additional verticals and integrate with more marketing channels to find customers on sites like Yelp. Booker offers a unified cloud platform that combines scheduling, point-of-sale, CRM, employee management, marketing and loyalty programs, and reporting to help small-to-medium and multi-location service businesses run operations and automate marketing. The product is used by over 60,000 service professionals across verticals including health, wellness, beauty, home improvement, and professional services. Booker processes more than one million appointments each month across 73 countries and supports 11 languages. In 2012 the company reported its fourth consecutive year of triple-digit revenue growth and said it doubled annual transaction volume to nearly $1 billion. Booker began as the SpaBooker division within SpaFinder (it was formerly known as GramercyOne) and was later spun out as its own company. The platform’s appeal centers on capturing the entire purchase cycle and customer history from promotion to sale. GramercyOne, launched in 2010, provides the Booker Platform, a suite of cloud-based tools for business management, marketing and online booking. The Booker Platform enables customer acquisition through social commerce, group buying, mobile and local advertising, and social booking solutions. The company serves over 2,500 businesses across 56 countries and supports eight languages. Its customers range from small service businesses such as spas, fitness centers and beauty salons to large organizations including Hilton Worldwide. GramercyOne says its platform processes over 700,000 transactions averaging $1 million in value every day. The company was spun out from SpaFinder after its SpaBooker division’s scheduling functionality gained traction beyond the spa industry.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2012

NovaTract Surgical develops laparoscopic medical devices aimed at reducing the number of incisions required for minimally invasive surgery. Its initial product is designed specifically to address that need. The company licensed its core technology from Yale University. It is led by CEO Eleanor Tandler and is based in New Haven, Conn. NovaTract raised $2.37M in a Series A to advance commercialization and bring its first product to market by mid-2013. Connecticut Innovations and other investors have supported the company through earlier pre-seed and seed investments. NovaTract Surgical is developing laparoscopic medical devices intended to reduce the number of incisions used in minimally invasive abdominal surgery. The company is initially focusing on an internal organ retraction device to aid procedures such as gall bladder removals and appendectomies. The device is intended to make single-port and natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery methods easier for general surgeons. NovaTract licensed its core technology from Yale University; the technology and techniques were developed by scientific founder Kurt E. Roberts, M.D. The company is led by co-founder and CEO Eleanor Tandler. Financially, NovaTract has been raising seed-stage funding, including a recent $500K round and a prior $150K raise earlier in 2011. NovaTract Surgical, LLC is a New Haven, CT–based developer of specialized surgical tools for single-port laparoscopic and natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery. Its tools are designed to reduce postoperative pain, shorten recovery times, lower the risk of complications, and improve cosmetic outcomes. The company’s technology is licensed from Yale University. NovaTract has raised $150K in pre-seed funding and intends to use the capital to complete the design of its tools. Investors in the round include Advantage Capital Partners and Ironwood Capital. CEO Eleanor Tandler said the funding will allow NovaTract to continue to grow the business and create jobs in Connecticut.

Participated · Series B · May 2012

Clinverse provides automated financial management solutions for clinical trials, standardizing and automating payments, budgeting, forecasting, contract management, accruals, accounting and reporting. Its platform manages millions of financial transactions globally, including clinical site payments, and is used by leading BioPharma companies and CROs. Clinverse’s solutions reduce workload, time, and costs by eliminating spreadsheets and manual processes across multiple systems while improving transparency and workflow. The company intends to accelerate its product roadmap, bolster infrastructure, and expand sales and marketing as part of its growth. Edison Partners’ investment also brings strategic support through the Edison Edge platform and access to the Edison Director Network. Clinverse is based in Durham, NC. Clinverse provides ClinPay™, a cloud-based financial management and payment application that automates payments to investigator sites and other service providers in clinical trials. The company’s patent-pending, proprietary data-pod technology and secure cloud architecture support payments in 140 currencies and electronically track investigator grants while comparing agreements with trial operational data. ClinPay™ delivers real-time cost information, reduces errors and administrative costs, and aims to shorten payment lag to improve site satisfaction and retention. Clinverse’s customers include biopharma leaders, clinical research organizations (CROs), and other clinical-trial service providers. The company cites a market of $70 billion paid annually to service providers in clinical trials. Clinverse will use recent funding to expand market penetration and to launch and develop new product extensions to meet customer e-commerce needs. The company is headquartered in Raleigh, NC. Clinverse is a technology company focused on the financial management of clinical trials and associated payments in over 140 currencies. It develops ClinPay, an eClinical Trial Payment Network designed to manage trial payments across many currencies. The company announced it will use new capital to accelerate ClinPay’s development and deployment. Clinverse completed a $2.2M Series A financing to support these efforts. In conjunction with the funding, Craig Asher joined the company’s board and Umair Akeel was appointed Chief Technology Officer. The company is based in Charlotte, NC.

Led · Equity · Feb 2012

Halfpenny Technologies operates the Lab Hub platform to enable computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and structured laboratory results reporting between hospitals, laboratories and physician EHR systems. The platform produces normalized, LOINC-mapped data to support chronic disease management and population health goals. Halfpenny also offers a web-based portal for physicians to order and review lab results and a mobile results reporting solution for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. The company says its solutions satisfy HEDIS clinical data reporting requirements and help meet HITECH Act meaningful use criteria for CPOE, results reporting and quality reporting. Over the past twelve years Halfpenny has connected EHR systems in over 1,500 practices in the past two years and worked with systems from more than 160 different vendors. The company intends to use the new financing to expand deployment of its Lab Hub to a broader range of clients. Halfpenny Technologies is a Blue Bell, PA-based provider of clinical data integration solutions specializing in laboratory, pathology and physician EMR system interoperability. Its core product, the Lab Hub platform, enables computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and results reporting interfaces between hospitals, laboratories and physician EMR systems. Lab Hub also fulfills downstream requirements for viewing normalized, LOINC-mapped data for chronic disease management and other population health management goals. The company offers a web-based physician portal for ordering laboratory procedures and reviewing results through a standard browser. Its mobile results reporting solution provides physicians with value alerts and results on smartphones including the Apple iPhone, Motorola Droid and Blackberry Torch. With the $2.6M financing, the company says it is well-positioned to deliver Lab Hub to meet increasing demand for products supporting Laboratory Outreach, Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Regional Extension Center (REC) initiatives.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2012

LookingGlass Cyber Solutions offers a unified threat protection portfolio that operationalizes threat intelligence through scalable platforms, machine-readable data feeds, and network-based threat response products. Its services include Threat Intelligence-as-a-Service, Corporate and Supplier Cyber Attack Surface Analysis, and Third Party Risk Monitoring, supported by a worldwide team of security analysts. The company serves global enterprises and government agencies and has forged relationships across Singapore, the UAE, India, Japan and the DACH region. LookingGlass reports substantial revenue, high growth, and near-term profitability which attracted new investors. The company is expanding its Cyber Guardian Network (over 40 companies and MSSPs subscribed, including CenturyLink) to extend distribution through partners. Future plans emphasize accelerating international sales, portfolio expansion, continued technological advancements, and delivering risk visibility across cyber, physical assets, and third-party partners. LookingGlass delivers threat and Internet intelligence-driven security and dynamic threat defense products that discover, understand, manage and mitigate threats. Its suite ingests, aggregates, normalizes, enriches and analyzes extensive threat data to create actionable intelligence layered on continuous monitoring and assessment of global Internet risks. The company announced the acquisition of Cyveillance (closed December 11, 2015) to add open-source and customer-specific intelligence capabilities and broaden visibility across the risk landscape. It completed a $50 million Series C financing led by NewSpring Capital and had previously raised a $20 million Series B earlier in the year. Proceeds will support the Cyveillance acquisition and fund product development, product integration, international expansion, sales, marketing and customer support. Existing investors include Alsop Louie Partners and the Neuberger Berman Group, and ARC Securities advised on the acquisition and capital raise. Lookingglass Cyber Solutions offers a threat intelligence management system that supports risk and security operations decision-making. Led by CEO Chris Coleman, the platform increases visibility within and beyond the network perimeter and is data- and feed-agnostic, supporting commercial and open-source threat intelligence feeds. The company plans to continue enhancing its products and support while integrating specific capabilities such as service-enabled control through machine-readable threat intelligence (MRTI). Lookingglass intends to expand its team and drive increased adoption among large businesses and government agencies. The company recently raised new funding to support these efforts. It is based in Arlington, VA. Lookingglass Cyber Solutions builds cyber situational awareness software that aggregates and analyzes diverse intelligence sources to identify emerging threats. Its core product, ScoutVision, enriches external threat intelligence with data from customers' infrastructures to help prioritize risks and determine relevance rapidly. ScoutVision enables continuous monitoring of customers' networks, partner networks and cloud resources and helps security teams determine whether networks have communicated with known threat sources. The company reports traction with Fortune 100 companies, U.S. federal agencies (including those charged with critical infrastructure protection), government defense contractors, intelligence organizations and mid-size financial institutions. Lookingglass plans to use new funding to bring a next generation of cyber intelligence tools to market and to support marketing, sales and deployment initiatives. The company is headquartered in Baltimore.