PICS Auditing, LLC, a leading SaaS and tech-enabled services business that helps corporations manage the contractor screening and credentialing process, announced today that it has received a $35 million minority equity investment from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a leading multi-stage investment firm. PICS will use the capital infusion and extensive strategic resources Norwest has to offer to aggressively expand into new sectors and geographies, as well as develop new product offerings that augment the value of the PICS platform to contractors and enterprises. With this investment, NVP's Jon Kossow and Rob Arditi have joined PICS' board of directors.

PICS makes it easy for the world's largest organizations to develop and maintain a world-class prequalification and compliance system for managing contractors, suppliers and vendors. As the trend of outsourcing continues, companies require more sophisticated tools for contractor management. For higher risk jobs or tasks requiring prior training, operators have historically needed to internally screen and monitor contractor compliance with a multitude of regulations and training requirements -- this is often a resource intensive and error-prone process. PICS provides a SaaS portal and managed service to operators by acting as a manager for contractor prequalification and ongoing compliance. The company tracks 300+ regulations and contractor certification standards, thereby lowering internal costs and reducing errors. By leveraging its team of safety professionals, a global consortium of customers and an easy-to-use Web interface, PICS reduces the administrative burden on operators, thus improving the safety performance of contractors and clients. PICS also makes it easier for contractors to land new jobs with enterprises and monitor their own compliance mandates.

"Today's significant equity investment from NVP is a testament to the progress we've made as a company to date and PICS' tremendous growth potential in the years to come. Demand for our technology and service offerings has never been stronger, and we continue to win enterprise customers who are impressed by our commitment to exceptional customer service, reasonable prices and superior technology," said John Moreland, CEO, PICS. "NVP's deep network of relationships, vast strategic resources and strong track record in building successful companies is a huge advantage to PICS as we grow our business. We are excited about our new partnership with NVP and we look forward to collaborating with the team to take our company to the next level."

"PICS presents a rare opportunity for us to invest in an industry leader within the large and significantly underpenetrated contractor prequalification sector. This investment fits perfectly with NVP's strategy of finding founder-owned, bootstrapped companies with significant revenue and earnings traction," said Jon Kossow, general partner, NVP. "We've been following the company closely for years and we've watched PICS become the fastest growing, most disruptive and most admired player in the contractor prequalification industry. We believe penetration for contractor prequalification technology and services will increase from approximately 10-20% today to more than 50% in the next few years."

PICS' contractor prequalification solutions serve a number of blue-chip clients across a variety of industries such as aerospace, chemical, construction, energy, food & beverage, government, manufacturing, mining, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, pulp & paper, telecommunications and waste management. A sampling of these clients include such companies as United Technologies, BASF, Shell, Huntsman, AES, Imperial Oil, Timken, Cintas, L'Oreal, BP, Roquette, Boise, Motorola and Cummins. The PICS platform hosts critical data and has substantial network effects.

"We're seeing increased regulation domestically and abroad that is forcing businesses in a variety of industries to pay greater attention to compliance and safety certification when working with contractors and suppliers. These complex, shifting requirements make the task of qualifying all contractors and suppliers both resource-intensive and error-prone," said Rob Arditi, vice president, NVP. "PICS is well positioned to help enterprises improve safety standards and manage a host of regulations while increasing contractor and supplier compliance on a global basis."

About PICS
PICS is a global contractor management consortium committed to improving Health, Safety and Quality. PICS' prequalification and auditing services have become the standard in many industries, including: Chemical, Construction, Energy, Food & Beverage, Oil & Gas, Mining, Manufacturing, Pulp & Paper and Pharmaceutical. Access to thousands of vendors' prequalification information is housed online at www.PICSauditing.com. Founded in 2003 as an organization dedicated to safety, PICS is the fastest-growing, full-service contractor prequalification company worldwide. PICS is headquartered in Irvine, California, with offices in Houston, Texas; Calgary, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; Johannesburg, South Africa; Maidenhead, U.K.; Munich, Germany; Paris, France; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Sydney, Australia; Singapore; Tokyo, Japan and Hong Kong, China. For more information visit www.picsauditing.com

About Norwest Venture Partners (NVP)
Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a multi-stage investment firm that has partnered with entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 50 years. The firm manages over $3.7 billion in capital and has funded more than 500 companies since inception. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, NVP has subsidiaries in Mumbai and Bengaluru, India and Herzelia, Israel. NVP makes early to late stage venture and growth equity investments across a wide range of sectors including: technology, information services, business services, financial services, consumer products/services and healthcare. For more information visit: www.nvp.com.