Granicus, Inc. Announces $10 Million Strategic Investment from JMI Equity
16 Jan 2008
by: Lauren Alexander
Profitable Company to Use Proceeds to Expand Leadership Position in Webcasting and Public Meeting Management Solutions for Government; Funding Affirms Market Demand
San Francisco, CA – January 16, 2008 - After eight years of successfully growing its business, Granicus® Inc., the nation’s leading provider of government webcasting and public meeting management solutions, announced today that it has raised $10 million in Series A financing from JMI Equity. The investment funds will capitalize on Granicus’ consistently strong market growth and momentum, enabling significant expansions in sales, marketing, product development, and customer support. Peter Arrowsmith, a general partner at JMI Equity, has joined Granicus’ Board of Directors to support the company’s growth. JMI is a private equity firm exclusively focused on investment in growing software and business services companies.
“It was important for us to find a firm that understood our exclusive focus on providing solutions to improve the business processes of governments and JMI Equity met all of our requirements,” said Tom Spengler, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Granicus, Inc. “With JMI’s track record of investing in growing vertical market businesses that deliver ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) solutions, they bring more than just capital; they will add significant value to the strategic direction of our organization.”
Granicus’ wide suite of solutions includes licensing models specifically designed to allow governments to work within fixed budgets, including unlimited bandwidth for delivery of audio/video streaming content to global audiences, highly reliable system monitoring that ensures the performance and availability of their content, and custom information technology and website integration that ensures that content meets the very specific service level requirements of governments. With pricing and software that are designed to be highly scalable, Granicus’ solutions are already in use by governments with populations as small as 246 and as large as many millions.
“Granicus offers a truly unique integrated public meeting record, servicing governing bodies that are increasingly looking for more reliable and cost-effective solutions for webcasting, public meeting management and constituent communication,” said Mr. Arrowsmith. “The industry vision and foresight demonstrated by Tom and the entire Granicus management team have positioned the company to address this promising growth market by continuing to offer significant opportunities for innovative, best-in-class technology with world-class functionality. We look forward to applying our industry expertise to help further expand Granicus’ standing among local, state, federal, special district and other governmental organizations.”
Granicus has been consistently profitable since 2004, with the company and its client-base having doubled in size every year since 2003. Today, Granicus serves nearly 400 government clients, earning 165 new clients in 2007 alone. The company streams more than 85,000 public meetings and other government content live and on-demand, reaching nearly 1.5 million individual citizen views every month. The fundamental demand for government to deliver critical public services with greater transparency and efficiency is rapidly intensifying. Granicus’ proven industry success and exclusive focus on the unique requirements of government positions the company well for continued growth.
Mr. Spengler continued: “JMI is our first institutional investment. It is more than a significant step for us; it validates our niche in a powerful new market. JMI’s capital and expertise will help us strengthen our business infrastructure, expand our solutions portfolio and give us the ammunition we need to even more aggressively meet the market demand for our solutions.”
About JMI Equity
JMI Equity, based in Baltimore and San Diego, is a private equity firm exclusively focused on investments in growing software and business services companies at all stages of their lifecycles. Founded in 1992, JMI has invested in more than 85 companies throughout North America and has approximately $1.3 billion of committed capital under management. JMI provides the first institutional capital to self-funded companies, partners with management teams to acquire or recapitalize market leading companies and selectively makes investments in early-stage companies. Representative investments include Blackbaud, DoubleClick, Kronos and Unica. For more information on JMI, visit www.jmiequity.com.
About Granicus
Founded in 1999, San Francisco-based Granicus, Inc. helps government reach staff and constituents without barriers. Public agencies trust our webcasting solutions to enable vital improvements to public access, staff efficiency, and government accountability. In addition, the combination of webcasting with public meeting management technology into a single workflow decreases administrative costs and simplifies public recordkeeping tasks. Granicus serves more than 400 governing bodies in 44 states, building close connections with more than 30% of the American population.
Contact
Lauren Alexander
Corporate Communications Manager
415-357-3618 x1788
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