Ketera Raises $10 Million

"On-demand" spend management provider draws new funding to drive marketing, development

"On-demand" spend management provider draws new funding to drive marketing, development

Mountain View, CA  June 27, 2003  Ketera Technologies this week raised $10 million in new funding in what the solution provider touted as a validation of its "on-demand" business model for spend management applications.

Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital and Ketera founder American Express put up the money in this second round of funding for the provider of online procurement solutions, which just last month reported an infusion of cash from Amex, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Texas Pacific Group and Bain & Co.

Formerly known as MarketMile, Ketera said it would use the new funding to help meet the growing demand for the company's services, as well as to expand the solution footprint and related services, according to company CEO Steve Savignano.

Savignano noted the traction for Ketera's spend management service among Fortune 1000 companies, including such enterprises as Universal Studios, Capital One, Vought Aircraft and CNF, all of which subscribe to Ketera's services.

The CEO, arguing that traditional software solutions for spend management have not delivered on their promised value, asserted that Ketera's "on-demand" solutions are as much as five to ten time less expensive than software and can therefore provide a more rapid return on investment (ROI).

Ed Stark, vice president of supply chain planning at recent Ketera customer Capital One, agreed that Ketera is an attractive solution precisely because of its "on-demand" model. "Ketera's solution eliminates the headaches you get with software solutions and it speeds up ROI," Stark said.

In conjunction with the latest funding round, Paul Holland, general partner at Foundation Capital, will join the Ketera board of directors. Holland previously served as senior vice president of worldwide sales at Kana Communications and as general manager of Pure Software.

iSource Business recently included Ketera in its iSource 100 list of leading supply and demand chain solution providers.

For more information on Ketera's "on-demand" software model, see the August 20, 2002, iSourceonline article "Manage Spend, Not Software."
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