Your Source for Venture Capital and Private Equity Financings

Venture Capital News: Kaleo Raises $1.5M

2013-07-03
LOS ANGELES, CA, Creator of an enterprise SaaS application that puts the answers to essential business questions at users' fingertips, has closed $1.5 million funding.
Kaleo, the creator of an enterprise SaaS application that puts the answers to essential business questions at users' fingertips, has closed $1.5 million funding. This round, intended to expand Kaleo's device reach and the company's user base, was led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Double M Partners, TenOneTen Ventures and others. The funding builds on the $500,000 investment from Pasadena based Idealab.

"There is time and investment required to train employees on any enterprise software tool. At times the cost of on-boarding will even outweigh the productivity gains from the software," said Ian Sigalow, co-founder and partner at Greycroft Partners. "Kaleo has developed a new approach to training and knowledge management, allowing its customers to have expert advice at their fingertips, inside any cloud-based application. This represents the next wave in enterprise knowledge sharing, expert-validated answers to any question."

"Kaleo's curation and discovery application is a turnkey solution that yields measurable ROI," added Mark Mullen, founder and managing partner at Double M Partners. "The distinction between ˜knowledge sharing' and ˜conversation' has been a judgment call in the past. Kaleo's approach to behind-the-scenes curation lets those gems surface and gain recognition, additionally helping company leaders identify trending topics and emerging expertise."

Dell, Ventura Foods and other companies in the entertainment and home-building industries now use Kaleo's enterprise knowledge network to collect and share previously untapped knowledge. Authorized users use a personalized dashboard to search for reliable and accurate information on any topic, ranging from product to process related questions.

"Our solution fits hand-in-glove with business applications our customers are already using, said Phil Hui-Bon-Hoa, CEO at Kaleo. "We're proud to say we were able to create a robust yet elegant application that immediately adds value to any enterprise experiencing technological and process change. With this funding, we are now eager to take this ready-to-go solution to broader audiences."

Also, Kaleo has brought on sales veteran William J. O'Brien in the post of Chief Revenue Officer. Prior to Kaleo, Mr. O'Brien helped Vignette Corporation become the fastest growing enterprise software company in industry history with annual revenues growing from $3 million to over $500 million in a three-year period. In addition, Mark Mullen will be joining the Kaleo Board of Directors.

Kaleo was started in 2011 after Phil Hui-Bon-Hoa collaborated with several industry executives looking for the best way to quickly and effectively share knowledge while simultaneously creating a corporate asset. Mr. Hui-Bon-Hoa formerly worked with John Lynch and re-partnered with him to create Kaleo software. Mr. Lynch is now the CTO of Kaleo.

About Greycroft Partners

Greycroft Partners is a leading early stage venture capital firm focused on investments in digital media. With offices in the two media capitals of the world - New York and Los Angeles - Greycroft is uniquely positioned to serve entrepreneurs who have chosen us as their partners. Greycroft leverages an extensive network of media and technology industry connections to help entrepreneurs gain visibility, build strategic relationships, and successfully bring their products to market to build successful businesses. Greycroft manages $400MM and has made over 75 investments in leading companies including Babble, Buddy Media, Collective, Huffington Post, Klout, M5 Networks, Maker Studios, Paid Content, Pulse and Trunk Club. For more information, please visit the Greycroft Partners website at http://www.greycroft.com.

About Kaleo

Kaleo Software's cloud-based network improves the efficiency in which knowledge is obtained and delivered both within the enterprise and extended enterprise. Rather than combing through documents on a portal, searching through threads in a social network or sending emails to gain knowledge, Kaleo focuses on delivering validated expert answers to questions to users from within the applications they are working or through their mobile devices. Current customers include Fortune 100 companies such as Dell and Ventura Foods. For more information visit http://www.kaleosoftware.com.
(c) by Massinvestor, Inc. For contact info, please check out our about page.
>> Click here for in-depth research on 9,000+ startups and 5,000+ VC investors