Host Analytics Raises $17M for Cloud EPM
Enterprise performance management (EPM) is emerging as an important new front in the cloud business app wars.
Host Analytics, a Redwood City, Calif.-based software maker, has secured $17 million in a Series D round of financing to help fuel the company's expansion. Advanced Technology Ventures, Next World Capital, StarVest Partners and Trident Capital, all prior investors, contributed to the round.
CEO Dave Kellogg said tthe infusion of cash arrives in the wake of a record-setting year for the company. “Host Analytics had a stellar 2012, including record sales and customer growth,” stated Kellogg in remarks prepared for the press.
Revenues shot up 90 percent in 2012 and the company attracted some big name clients, including WD-40, NEC and Splunk. Last year, the company took the wraps off a self-service reporting tool called Host Analytics Business Analytics. It also inked a partnership deal with Birst, a cloud-based business intelligence software company.
The additional financing also helps set the stage for an assault on the traditional EPM software market. “This financing will enable us to continue full speed ahead in disrupting the traditional on-premises EPM market with the greatly superior cloud technology and business model,” said Kellogg.
Kellogg, clearly hoping the fortunes of some of today’s market-leading innovators rubs off on his company, invoked some pretty big names in the cloud-based business software scene. “We are in the pole position to become the Salesforce, the SuccessFactors or the Marketo of the EPM space,” he said.
It won't be easy. Rivals are pouring big money and resources into growing their own EPM and cloud business app ecosystems.
In September, SAP added more HANA cloud apps to its portfolio, including EPM apps that leverage the company's in-memory database technology and blur the distinction between on-premise and cloud apps. SAP also revealed EPM Unwired, mobile software that can grant smartphone users access to SAP's on-demand and on-premise EPM apps.
Nonetheless, Host Analytics' investors are bullish on the cloud pureplay's chances in the market.
Deborah Farrington, founder and general partner at StarVest Partners, stated, “The cloud has transformed virtually every other sector in the enterprise software business and that transformation is now hitting the EPM market in full force. Host Analytics is the right company in the right place at the right time to lead the market transformation.”
Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.
Pedro Hernandez contributes to Enterprise Apps Today, and 11Press, the technology network. He was previously the managing editor of Internet.com, an IT-related website network. He has expertise in Smart Tech, CRM, and Mobile Tech, Helping Banks and Fintechs, Telcos and Automotive OEMs, and Healthcare and Identity Service Providers to Protect Mobile Apps.
