Add e-mail certification provider Goodmail Systems Inc. to the list of venture-backed companies grateful to find some funds still flowing. Despite having successfully raised two prior rounds and demonstrating a 30-fold increase in business from only a year ago, the company says most VC doors were slammed shut when it went looking for a Series C round.
"Many firms had complete moratoriums on new funding," says Daniel Dreymann (pictured) co-founder and president of Goodmail.
The $20 million funding Goodmail announced on Friday was led by Bessemer, with participation from DCM, Emergence Capital Partners and Softbank Capital. The investment follows on $26.2 million the company raised previously in institutional and angel rounds.
"Bessemer had a moratorium, too, but they made an exception," Dreymann quips.
For its part, Bessemer says it had long been interested in Goodmail, but had been put off by the startup's daunting challenge. The company is working to modernize e-mail with a service that lets businesses certify their outgoing mail so that it is not automatically directed to spam or trash baskets. The challenge was to get Internet service providers to agree to give special treatment to Goodmail-certified e-mail. The company looks to be overcoming that challenge: It has partnered with seven of the 10 biggest ISPs that Goodmail says collectively ferry more than half of all the e-mail in the U.S. and Europe.
Bessemer partner David Cowan says he was impressed with Goodmail's ability to not only build a certification technology, but also to bring so many IPSs on board. "No one else has put together this much infrastructure," he says. --Andrea Orr
See Nov. 21 announcement on Series C funding from Goodmail Systems
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