Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners invades Philly; Backs Monetate, and now NextDocs

Upon reading this morning that the $10.3 million investement in King of Prussia-based life sciences compliance software vendor NextDocs was funded by Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners, I realized that I had heard that name before recently - in connection with another Philly area deal.

It was Monetate, in which OpenView led a $15 million round, which was announced on August 4.

I asked OpenView partner Firas Raouf in a phone conversation whether there was any connection to this geographical proximity, given that OpenView has no other Philadelphia presence in its portfolio that I can see, or whether it was mere coincidence. He said it was just a coincidence. OpenView, he says, focuses on providing expansion funding to emerging best of breed software companies worldwide (as long as they have some US operations), and doesn't have an East Coast orientation or mid-Atlantic strategy. While he managed the NextDocs deal, OpenView managing director Adam Marcus oversaw the Monetate deal, just a few miles away.

He said he had been speaking with NextDocs co-founder and CEO Zikria Syed for a couple of years, though Syed did not want to get funding too soon (and Raouf did not think NextDocs needed it yet). Syed got the business off the ground to where it is today almost entirely through bootstrapping, with no outside institutional investment.

Raouf says NextDocs can expand in several ways; by growing its customer base in the US ( NextDocs often replaces outdated legacy systems used for regulatory compliance), internationally, and also by moving into clinical trial management systems.

Raouf will join NextDocs' board. OpenView, which has $240 million under management, was the sole participant in this round, he says.



Daily Links 8/22/2011: Initial Hulu bids due Wednesday

King of Prussia-based NextDocs Raises $10.3M To Provide Microsoft SharePoint Software To Life Sciences Industry (TechCrunch)
NextDocs Press Release.

Veeva to hire 50 as drug, device companies head to the cloud (San Francisco Business Times)
Based in Pleasanton, CA, Veeva has its sales & marketing headquarters in Malvern.

Hulu Bids Expected to Range Between $500 Million and $2 Billion (Hollywood Reporter)

IDCC Rising On Rumor Of Qualcomm Interest (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Motorola’s Identity Crisis (New York Times)

Pres. Obama Drops By Martha’s Vineyard Home of Comcast CEO
(MediaBistro)

Thinking The Unthinkable: Is Oracle Considering Buying HP? (Forbes)

Cloud not yet critical for BI: QlikTech (Computer Business Review)


Federal Push for ‘Cloud’ Technology Faces Skepticism (New York Times)

How secure is data in the cloud? (SAP Watch)

How I Knew To Invest In GroupMe (Silicon Alley Insider)



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