The Deal
Sunday, November 8, 
12:54 pm

Authoria lands 5th VC round

  Share     E-Mail    Discussion    Print Story

Personnel and human resources software provider Authoria Inc. raised $22.5 million in a fifth round of debt and equity to support a hosted platform for specialized products for recruitment, succession planning, compensation and other talent management functions.
 
Horizon Technology Finance of Farmington, Conn., and Velocity Financial Group of Wakefield, Mass., came into the round as new investors.
They join previous backers Menlo Ventures of Menlo Park, Calif., Austin Ventures of Austin, Texas, Van Wagoner Capital Management of San Francisco, CIBC Capital Partners of New York and Norwest Venture Partners of Menlo Park.
 
The deal follows acquisitions the 10-year-old company made of Austin-based Hire.com in 2005 and Advanced Information Management Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2004, in an industry that continues to consolidate.
Investors said they were attracted to the deal based on the acquisitions the company has made in a sector they believe has been undervalued.

"We are very familiar with the space, and knew they were growing nicely, and they are a consolidator in a consolidating industry," said Greg Clark, a managing director with Horizon Technology Finance. "Talent management is an area with a couple of niches that were not being well valued on Wall Street, and it seemed to us the consolidation in that space was needed and that they have done a good job."

Authoria executives declined to comment on the new investment round, but the deal brings total equity investment in the company to well over $100 million, in addition to $58 million raised by Hire.com. Authoria's most recent announced investment round was a $10 million deal led by CIBC in 2004.
At the time of the Hire.com acquisition in 2004, Authoria said it had begun operating profitably, but Hire.com had not achieved profitability.

In a statement, Authoria reported that sales bookings grew 40% in the first half of this year over the same period of 2006, and that customers increased by 23%.

Continue reading below

Also on Dealscape





Post a comment




The Deal Pipeline

Deal Video


Inside The Deal: Linklaters' Schmidt says how regulators handled Pfizer Inc.'s acquisition of Wyeth is an outlier of how others merger reviews will be conducted.


More video...

Crisis On Wall Street
Technology
Deals of The Decade

Community

Industry Insight

Dealing with frozen bank lending

If your bank is not willing to lend, what can you do as your company continues to seek growth?


Judgment Call

The coming age of the renminbi

The Chinese currency will play an increasingly important role in international commerce and finance.


Industry Insight

Banking on PE investments

Howls of protest greeted the FDIC policy statement, but the financial services industry should get over it.



©Copyright 2008, The Deal, LLC. All rights reserved. Please send all technical questions, comments or concerns to the Webmaster.