Nexidia Secures Over $23 Million in New Equity FundingHarbourVest Partners, BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners & Sandbox Industries Lead New Investment
ATLANTA GA – October 18, 2010 – Nexidia, the market-leading provider of audio search and speech analytics solutions, today announced that the company has received over $23 million in new equity funding to extend business growth and technology leadership in its key markets. The funding will be used to further develop and protect original research in its core technology and intellectual property, and to increase the company’s operational capacity in the contact center and other markets worldwide.
New investors in this round are BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Sandbox Industries and HarbourVest Partners. They join existing investors HIG Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Boston Millennia Partners, Morgan Stanley and Cordova Ventures, all of whom added to their equity stake in the company.
“When we invest in high growth companies we look for reliable predictors of commercial success,” said Ian Lane, Vice President at HarbourVest Partners. “The company must have a differentiated and defensible technology, provide a substantial and tangible ROI to their customers, show demonstrated traction addressing a large market opportunity, and be led by a management team with a proven ability to execute in a fast paced environment. In Nexidia’s case, the team has utilized their patented phonetic technology to create a portfolio of applications that address the universal challenges of creating better products, delivering more effective customer service, and improving profitability.”
Nexidia has consistently grown its contact center customer base and earned high recognition in the marketplace, including its fourth consecutive title of Market Winner for Speech Analytics by Speech Technology Magazine in August of 2010. In July 2010 the company announced significant enhancements to its Enterprise Speech Intelligence (ESI) product suite, including Nexidia Discover to provide automated analysis and trend spotting within customer interactions, and Nexidia Evaluate to manage and improve performance across an entire organization and down to individual agents. Nexidia also recently announced Managed Analytic Services, a new program that leverages Nexidia’s experience across multiple industries and contact centers to help customers achieve operational results faster and with lower total costs.
One of Nexidia’s key vertical markets within contact centers is health insurers, which is what attracted BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners. “We focus on innovative technologies that allow Blue Plans to provide better services to their members, at lower prices,” said Paul Brown, Managing Director of BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners. “Nexidia provides analytics that help health plans address customer calls more effectively. This results in better customer service and improved operations. Several Blue Plans are satisfied Nexidia customers that have already experienced these improvements.”
In addition to contact centers, Nexidia is the leading provider of applications for the legal and regulatory review of audio content and works with AmLaw 100 firms and major regulatory agencies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to support electronic discovery of audio and video. And Nexidia provides technology and applications for the rich media market, including the recent launch of AV3 ‘get’ which brings the power of phonetic search as a plug-in to Apple’s Final Cut Pro video editing software. AV3 ‘get’ earned Digital Video Magazine’s Black Diamond award at the 2010 National Association of Broadcasters Show for outstanding advancement of the art and science of video technology.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in demand for our products and services across all of our markets,” said John Willcutts, president and chief executive officer of Nexidia. “This new investment will allow Nexidia to leverage our leadership position in these markets to further accelerate our company’s growth.”
For more information about Nexidia, visit: http://www.nexidia.com.
About BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, L.P.
BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, L.P. is a $116 million corporate venture fund sponsored by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies. The fund invests in promising emerging companies of strategic relevance to Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans. Through an exclusive arrangement, management of the Fund is shared between participating Blue Plans, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, and Sandbox Industries. For more information, please visit www.bcbsvp.com.
About Sandbox Industries
Sandbox Industries is a venture capital and business incubation firm located in Chicago. Sandbox is managed by leaders in identifying and commercializing novel ideas and technologies. The Sandbox team utilizes its network and unique combination of operational, strategic, and financial expertise to provide access to customers, capital, and connections when building market-leading companies. Sandbox is also the exclusive fund manager of BCBS Venture Partners. For more information, please visit www.sandboxindustries.com.
About HarbourVest Partners, LLC
HarbourVest Partners, LLC invests in venture capital, buyout, mezzanine debt, and distressed debt through investments in funds, secondary purchases of assets, and direct investments in companies. In over 28 years of investing in private equity, the team has invested $4 billion into more than 400 operating companies, committed more than $22 billion to newly formed funds, and also completed over $6 billion in secondary purchases. HarbourVest and its subsidiaries have more than 230 employees, including more than 70 investment professionals deployed in Boston, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. The firm’s clients consist of 300 institutional investors, including pension funds, endowments, foundations, and financial institutions throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Latin America, and Japan. To learn more visit www.harbourvest.com.
About Nexidia
Nexidia is the audio and video search company with patented technologies and breakthrough applications that enable customers to quickly gain new insight, build competitive advantage and realize the amazing possibilities now discoverable in audio and video content from contact centers, media outlets, government intelligence and legal discovery. For more information, please visit http://www.nexidia.com/.