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Covario, Inc. (Formerly SEMDirector) Raises $16 Million B Round
led by FTVentures
Investment Will Fuel Expansion into Interactive Marketing Analytics
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
INFLECTIONPoint, La Jolla, Calif. - January 22, 2008 - Covario, Inc., (formerly SEMDirector, Inc.)
leader in interactive marketing analytics, today announced in conjunction with its annual event,
INFLECTIONPoint, to be held January 24-25 in La Jolla, Calif., that FTVentures, a growth capital investor
with over $1 billion in assets under management, has led a $16 million Series B investment in the
company, joining existing investors Dubilier & Company and Voyager Capital. The funding will drive
further growth for Covario's search automation solutions and will advance the company's efforts in display
and video advertising markets. Eric Byunn, a partner at FTVentures, has joined the Covario board of directors, effective immediately.
"Covario is on the forefront of interactive marketing analytics, providing proven technology solutions for
complex, multi-site, multi-geography enterprises, which is highly attractive to FTVentures' Global Partner
Network," said Byunn. "The company has done an excellent job of integrating into the interactive
marketing ecosystem with a differentiated product offering, successfully positioning itself to take
advantage of this large and rapidly growing market."
Covario will continue to grow and maintain its leadership position in search marketing automation, while
expanding its scope to include other forms of interactive marketing analytics, such as display advertising,
as well as new advertising mediums, including video and mobile. FTVentures' investment in the company
will provide Covario with additional resources to pursue new partnerships, solutions and markets.
Specifically, the funds will be used to further build out Covario's sales force in the U.S. and to begin
penetrating international markets. The investment will also enable the development and marketing of new
technologies and products for management, monitoring and measurement of advertising in digital media
- display, mobile, video and social media.
"FTVentures brings a long-standing reputation and deep expertise in both digital marketing and the
financial services industry, and this investment will help propel Covario to new markets, while solidifying a
brand leadership role in interactive marketing analytics," said Russ Mann, chief executive officer at
Covario. "Given our focus and success in providing robust analytics solutions to large Fortune 500
advertisers, FTVentures will be a key strategic partner due to the firm's extensive global financial services
industry network."
Covario offers the Covario Marketing Action Platform™, a hosted solution designed for large advertisers
to efficiently manage complex global search engine marketing campaigns. Covario Marketing Action
Platform automates the gathering of search engine, Web analytics and other sales and marketing data to
provide a consistent business view of information that includes budget and purchase order allocations,
customer engagement and return on ad spend (ROAS). The platform offers two core software solutions:
Covario Paid Search Insight™ and Covario Organic Search Insight™. Covario Paid Search Insight
provides search, digital and interactive media executives and managers with a single environment for
tracking and evaluating paid search marketing performance. Covario Organic Insight enables large
enterprises to automate Web site auditing for effective compliance with search engine optimization (SEO)
best practices. Both solutions also deliver actionable information for global organizations to evaluate,
monitor and measure corporate and competitive online brand presence across multiple Search Engine
Results Pages (SERPs) for paid and organic programs.
Other investors in Covario include leading Seattle-based venture capital firm, Voyager Capital, and New
York-based private investment firm, Dubilier & Company. To learn more about Covario, please visit
www.covario.com.
About FTVentures
FTVentures provides growth capital to companies seeking to finance organic expansion, recapitalizations,
build-ups and buyouts. The firm invests in business services and software companies that derive value
from its unmatched Global Partner Network, which includes 40 of the world's leading financial institutions.
FTVentures' Global Partner Network provides the firm with a unique vantage point into the business
driven and operating challenges of the global enterprise. Founded in 1998, FTVentures currently has over
$1 billion under management with offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, please
visit www.ftventures.com.
About Covario, Inc.
Covario, Inc., formerly known as SEMDirector, is the leader in interactive marketing analytics (IMA)
software. The Covario portfolio provides global organizations with robust interactive and search marketing
analytics solutions for display advertising, paid search advertising and organic search engine optimization
across the enterprise and throughout the channel. Covario enables complex and distributed organizations
to control brand integrity, ensure budget transparency and deliver quantifiable results across business
units, distribution channels and languages. Headquartered in San Diego, Covario's growing customer list
include some of the world's best known brands in high tech manufacturing, financial services, electronics,
media & publishing and consumer packaged goods, such as Intel, Procter & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard,
Lenovo and AIG / AIU among others. For more information on Covario call 858.397.1500 or visit
http://www.covario.com.
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