Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

October 18, 2007

CRM Vendor Infusion Gets $9 Million Venture Funding

By David Sims

TMCnet Contributing Editor

Infusion Software (News - Alert), vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) software for small businesses, has announced it has secured funding of $9 million from MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures (News - Alert), a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. It's Infusion's first round of venture financing.

Company officials say they'll use the financing to "accelerate customer acquisition via increased sales and marketing efforts" and "enhance its CRM software built specifically for true small businesses," which Infusion defines as "owner-run organizations with 2-50 employees that have grown organically."

The salient difference between TSBs and other small businesses, Infusion officials think, is that "these businesses do not have layers like larger organizations, and thus automation of business processes via easy-to-use technology is highly desired."

"Infusion's approach to CRM technology, strong customer traction among small businesses, and management team have enabled the company to capture a notable share of what we believe to be a very significant market opportunity," said Nancy Schoendorf, MDV general partner and an Infusion Software board member.

Infusion Software's product, Infusion CRM, is Software-as-a-Service which centralizes, organizes and automates lead generation, lead conversion and client fulfillment. Infusion CRM was developed to provide a centralized customer management system with modules including e-commerce, lead capture, e-mail marketing, click tracking, billing and collections and other functions of sales, marketing and customer service.

Clate Mask, President and CEO of Infusion Software, said the investment "allows us to accelerate our plan to revolutionize the way small businesses drive and manage their growth."

In a recent interview with TMC (News - Alert) Mask said that within the past few years, technology and the Internet have given way to greater ability for the small business to maximize revenue through the use of web-based CRM software. "Traditionally, companies set up their CRM products buying shrink-wrapped software. But now with Web-based CRM software companies access their software through an Internet browser and pay subscription fees based on the computing power and capacity they need."

He said that while technology is a tool, "in the small business world, technology too often becomes the underlying problem. It's unwieldy, time-consuming and distracting. Rather than focusing on core business objectives, many small businesses find they've become slaves to technology. Of course, this happens in large enterprises too, but they have large IT staffs. Small businesses don't."

Mask finds that most small businesses turn to SaaS (News - Alert) for one of two reasons: "Either budgets are tight and they can't afford to purchase the software outright or they don't have the IT infrastructure in place to support it. Those are perfectly legitimate reasons. But even more important is that SaaS helps a small or mid-sized organization receive the efficiencies of scale common to a large enterprise."

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

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