9Lenses, a leader in organization intelligence software, announced today that it closed an additional $1.1M investment by Silicon Valley-based Icon Venture Partners. The Series A funding was led by DC-based Kinetic Ventures and the Corporate Executive Board Company. 9Lenses, whose software platform changes the way companies gather, analyze, and act on organizational insight, will use the funding to expand the company's sales and marketing efforts and accelerate new product development.

9Lenses CEO Edwin Miller says the 9Lenses platform replicates the deep insight executives obtain about their business when they hire expensive consultants, but on a broader scale that's only possible through technology.

'We do this better, faster, cheaper, and build science into the questioning, data collection, and analysis,' Miller said. The software doesn't replace consultants altogether, however. 'You still need the brilliance of people to design new processes or new jobs,' he said.

Icon General Partner Jeff Hinck, a former McKinsey & Company consultant, believes that '9Lenses has the opportunity to disrupt traditional consultant discovery practices by dramatically condensing the time required to learn about organizational issues. In addition to rapid data collection across the organization, 9Lenses connects people data in the same way that salesforce.com connects sales data. The growth potential for this market is significant.' Hinck continues, 'Icon Venture Partners will serve as a bridge to the west coast for 9Lenses, enabling 9Lenses to expand its talent base and industry presence.'

9Lenses believes that companies have the internal intelligence to solve most problems. The real issue is tapping into that intelligence - collecting relevant data, rapidly analyzing the data, and delivering actionable solutions. 9Lenses allows enterprises to do all three without having to lean on pricey outside consultancies. Jesse Levin, CEB's Head of Corporate Strategy & Development, rightly points out that 9Lenses will 'help enterprises be much more self-sufficient in their diagnoses of performance issues and understanding of remediation.'

By leveraging suites of packaged apps, companies can begin to collect data in a matter of minutes. Packaged apps allow companies to address issue like sales enablement, revenue acceleration, quality improvement, and organizational alignment. The 9Lenses platform enables companies to own their own data (shared through proprietary interview apps) in a centralized data repository. There's no intermediary.

Jake Tarr of Kinetic Ventures says that, '9Lenses provides companies with the flexibility to address critical issues across the organization, analyze that data, and act faster than ever before. The 9Lenses platform has the power to change the way companies operate.'

About 9Lenses:

9Lenses is the leading provider of organizational intelligence software, a next-generation platform which uses a proprietary Interview Engine and Analytics package to rapidly diagnose organizational strengths, challenges, and focus areas. Respondents share their ideas, opinions, and perceptions about organizational health through digital interview applications. The resulting data provides deeper insight than thousands of face-to-face interviews, and it reaches decision makers in minutes, not months. Most notably, enterprises own the data and can benchmark scores against internal and external industry standards to find areas of best practice and accelerate performance over time. For more information, visit http://www.9lenses.com.

SOURCE: 9Lenses

About The Corporate Executive Board Company:

CEB is the leading member-based advisory company. By combining the best practices of thousands of member companies with our advanced research methodologies and human capital analytics, we equip senior leaders and their teams with insight and actionable solutions to transform operations. This distinctive approach, pioneered by CEB, enables executives to harness peer perspectives and tap into breakthrough innovation without costly consulting or reinvention. The CEB member network includes more than 16,000 executives and the majority of top companies globally. For more information, visit http://www.executiveboard.com.

SOURCE: Corporate Executive Board

About Kinetic Ventures:

Kinetic Ventures is a venture capital investor in high growth, industry defining information, communications, and power/clean technology companies. For over two decades we have partnered with outstanding entrepreneurs to build world-class enterprises. Since 2008, Kinetic funds have been capitalized by corporate pension, endowment, and family office investors. We primarily invest in early stage companies. We will also selectively invest in seed and growth stage opportunities. Areas of focus include: Information Technology, Communications, and Power/Clean Technology. For more information, visit http://www.kineticventures.com.

SOURCE: Kinetic Ventures

About Icon Venture Partners:

Icon Venture Partners invests in high growth enterprise technology companies primarily at the Seed or Series A stage of financing with a focus on big data, cloud technologies, infrastructure software, mobile, SaaS, security, and storage. Icon has over 200 years combined experience investing in, managing, and operating technology companies, and it has invested in over 100 early stage technology companies. From investing to operating, Icon Venture Partners has demonstrated a repeatable model that has delivered significant investment returns over the past 30 years. For more information, visit http://iconvp.com/.