One of the tasks we set ourselves here is keeping up to date, more or less, on the technology tools available to help corporate dealmakers do their jobs more effectively. These include the many virtual data rooms now on the market and also the two or three (depending how you count) enterprise M&A software products.
In the latter category is Baltimore-based
TX2 Systems. As we noted in a magazine cover story on deal tools last year, TX2
was founded and is still
largely owned by CEO Juan Tosoni, a former enterprise software
marketing executive for several companies, including SAP AG. TX2
unveiled its flagship product, EMA, or Enterprise Merger and Acquisition
Software, in January 2005, and as we noted in that story, its early users included law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb,
Greene & MacRae LLP, insurer Aetna Inc. and others.
So how has TX2 fared since then? Juan and I met up at the Conference Board Business Development conference in New York a couple of weeks ago and arranged a call to catch up.
The answer, according to Tosoni, is quite well. Despite the overall slowdown in the M&A market, the company, while still small, is growing fast. He's up to 30 employees, has improved TX2's Web site, is close to $5 million in sales and has a number of new customers to report. "We now have nearly three dozen, nearly a third of them in the Fortune 100," he said.
Tosoni said he's positioned TX2's software along vertical lines -- for corp dev teams, for integration, for i-banks, for law firms and for PE firms. Though 75% of his customers are corporates, he said he now has customers in each vertical except PE, and he's close to signing a PE firm.
Among the customers he's added since our last article, he reported, are Morgan Stanley, Tyco Electronics Corp. and Walgreen Co. Whenever possible, he added, he gets a baseball cap from a new customer to add to his collection, which we're glad to share with readers.
Does he feel any pressure from the VDR providers, which are much bigger than his company and looking to expand their services? Not at all. He sees the offerings as complementary and said he's in talks about a partnership with VDR provider BMC.
Ever optimistic, Tosoni sees workstyle trends moving in TX2's favor. "Dealmaking still hasn't been automated that much," he said, speaking specifically about i-banks but making a point that applies more broadly. "There are a lot of old-school guys. But there's also a new crop of 40-and-unders who need and expect technology to track what they're working on." -
Kenneth Klee
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