Vovici Inc., Austin Ventures' two-year-old roll-up play in the area of enterprise feedback management -- or EFM -- software, raised its first outside funding since the venture firm formed the startup by purchasing and merging Internet survey companies Perseus Development Corp. and WebSurveyor Corp. in June 2006.
AV never disclosed the terms of the merger that constituted the Series A round for the company, which continued to operate under the Perseus/WebSurveyor name until April 2007. Nor were terms announced when the company acquired the assets of survey software provider Raosoft Inc. last August, or when it bought the Surveyo survey and poll division of mySmartSolutions in January.
Now Vovici has unveiled a $9 million second round and the addition of Mayfield Fund as an investor to build on the company's sophisticated online polling and market research software that it delivers in hosted form to a customer list it says now includes 58% of Fortune 500 companies. Vovici does not disclose revenues, but the company reports that software bookings grew a hefty 85% in 2007 over 2006.
In forming the company, AV teamed with Dean Wiltse, who is now chairman and CEO of Vovici. Wiltse was the former CEO of Greenfield Online Inc. [SRVY], a pioneering online market research technology company that went public for $65 million in 2004 and that currently has a market cap of about $314 million.
Wiltse was originally recruited to AV as an entrepreneur-in-residence to identify new online market research opportunities. This led to the firm to Perseus and WebSurveyor, which at the time of the acquisitions had already been in the business a combined 20 years. Vovici has built on that foundation to become what Mayfield's Ravi Batra called a "category creator" in hosted software for managing surveys, polls and online community panels. - Clifford Carlsen
See March 18 press release from Vovici
See Jan. 15 press release from Vovici
See August 2007 press release from Vovici
See June 2006 story from The Deal.com
For more, see Dean Wiltse's Vovici blog
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