Alight announced closure of a Series A funding round for $11 million including Caterpillar Venture Capital Inc. and a consortium of noted Bay Area tech investors, led by Alight chairman, Steven Berger. The funding is targeted toward driving the rapid scaling of the firm's mining and mortgage industry verticals and the expansion into new industries, including the addition of two new verticals in 2017, with pharma slated for Q3.

"CEOs are constantly rethinking the future of their businesses while also managing profits, cash flow and earnings growth," said Michele McGovern, CEO, Alight, Inc. "To be successful, executives must harness huge amounts of data coming at them from all sides and seize opportunities in real-time and uncover new sources of revenue.

"Our industry-specific forecasting applications bring together the power of real-time, collaborative forecasting with robust scenario comparison and analysis to help CEOs manage the futures of their business."

Alight enters new verticals by forming strategic relationships with top industry innovators and integration partners and builds industry-specific cloud-based forecasting solutions on its powerful technology platform. CEOs and their teams use Alight's applications to bring together historical and operational data with real-time market data to gain visibility into the financial impact of critical decisions - before they're made.

Caterpillar, the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives, had this to say about the investment in Alight: "We're always looking to invest in new ways to help miners improve their profitability, especially through the use of technology," said Jim Hawkins, managing director of mining technology for Caterpillar. "Alight's technologies can offer our customers financial applications that speed the 'what if' analysis around capital decisions such as machine and technology purchases as well as operational decision making. With our leadership on introducing automation to the industry, we have found that mine operators need to better understand the broad benefits coming from automation. Seeing the financial impact of a decision before it's made will be a great benefit at both the mine site and enterprise levels."

McGovern continued, "We couldn't be more excited to have Caterpillar as a strategic partner - it's among the most innovative and transformational companies in the world and together, the industry and our customers will enjoy the power of a global leader coupled with speed and nimbleness that a company like Alight can apply when bringing new innovations to market. It's the perfect match."

Alight is already commanding attention among tier 1 mining firms, including a division of the world's largest steel company, ArcelorMittal and a division of a global top-three oil company. The firm's mortgage banking business has signed nearly 40 of the nation's largest independent mortgage banking firms, including half of the firms in the top 10.

About Alight
Alight is a fast-growing provider of industry-specific, cloud-based applications that change the way businesses are run. Alight's applications let executives Manage the Future™ by showing the financial ripple effects of potential decisions across the enterprise. Alight works with firms in dynamic and complex industries, including financial services, mining, telecommunications, high tech and others. For more information: alightinc.com.

About Caterpillar
For more than 90 years, Caterpillar Inc. has been making sustainable progress possible and driving positive change on every continent. Customers turn to Caterpillar to help them develop infrastructure, energy and natural resource assets. With 2016 sales and revenues of $38.537 billion, Caterpillar is the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. The company principally operates through its three product segments - Construction Industries, Resource Industries and Energy & Transportation - and also provides financing and related services through its Financial Products segment. For more information, visit caterpillar.com. To connect with us on social media, visit caterpillar.com/social-media.