FTVentures
Leads $16 Million Round in Interactive Marketing Analytics Company
Covario (Formerly SEMDirector)
We
are pleased to announce that FTVentures has led a $16 million Series B round
in Covario, a leader in interactive marketing analytics software. Covario
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.
Covario’s solutions are highly relevant to our financial services
strategic investors because of their distinct ability to solve the
challenges of multi-site, multi-geography enterprises; Covario’s
customer base includes a division of AIG (FTVentures Limited
Partner) as well as other blue chip marketers such as Intel, Procter
& Gamble, and Hewlett-Packard.
Click
to read case study.
If you would like to learn more about Covario and/or the interactive
marketing analytics space, please contact:
Eric Byunn, FTVentures Partner
ebyunn@ftventures.com or
415-229-3052
To read the press release, click
here.
“More
For My Money”
FTVentures IT Outlook 2008
This year as in the past, we have queried the technology leadership at
our strategic limited partner institutions on their projections for the
upcoming year. The results of the FTVentures IT Outlook 2008
indicate the financial industry mandate is to drive increased operating
efficiencies through IT expenditures, while maximizing return on
investment and reducing risk. Recent years have cemented the tight
alignment of IT budgets to business units and goals; now CFOs will
require that those IT dollars spent directly impact the bottom line.
Our financial institutions are projecting IT budget growth of 3.5% in
2008, down from the 4.5% growth projected for 2007 and the 5% actual
growth experienced in 2006.
|
|
- 1998
– 2001
“Experimentation”
- 2002
– 2005
“Link with the Line”
- 2003
– 2008
“Efficiency”
|
Clearly, the dislocations in the mortgage industry and structured trading
are taking a sizeable chunk out of the 2008 budget IT budget.
2008 Key IT Spend Drivers
- Core
renewals and data center overhauls
- Over 1/3
of our bank and insurance company strategic partners have major
data center projects going on currently.
- Over 90%
are reallocating capital and focusing incremental spending on core
system upgrades.
- Cost
containment and improved infrastructure utilization
- Virtualization
is growing in importance at financial institutions of all sizes.
- Risk
management and compliance
- All
aspects of risk management have the attention of C-level
executives, although investment is beginning to shift from
infrastructure to evaluative processes and applications.
- GLB and
Basel 2, which some predict will be exponentially more costly than
Y2K, continue to drive enterprise risk management spending for
large money center banks.
- Areas of
operating budget growth include private banking and wealth
management
- Investment
in businesses where fee-related services generate attractive
revenue streams are driving IT spend. Business intelligence
functionality in this area is critical.
If you would like
to learn more about the FTVentures IT Outlook, please
contact
Jim Hale, FTVentures Founding Partner
jhale@ftventures.com or
415-229-3030
