QUEBEC CITY & CHICAGO – December 8, 2009 – Coveo, a leading provider of enterprise search solutions, today announced the completion of its Series B financing in the amount of $8.2 million. The financing was led by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC Venture Capital), and included all existing major investors, among them Propulsion Ventures SEC, The Solidarity Fund QFL, and Coveo Chairman Louis Têtu.
BDC Venture Capital Director Réjean Asselin said, “Coveo’s solid customer base of global organizations, and innovative solutions are the elements we look for when making investments in companies. In today’s market, it is rare to find this combination. We are pleased to help fuel Coveo’s continued success and trust that its seasoned executive team and their track record for building world-class technology companies, will once again be extremely successful here.”
Charles Sirois, Chairman of Telesystem Ltd. and Propulsion Ventures commented, “This important technology will help transform the way companies securely access and govern information, a critical business issue, much the same way that web-based consumer search transformed our day-to-day paradigm. I am also personally pleased to work with this experienced management team with whom we have a successful history of past investments.”
Gaétan Morin, executive vice president of investments, The Solidarity Fund QFL said, “We have been involved with Coveo for almost three years. This new investment marks an important milestone in the company’s growth and aligns perfectly with our investment goals. Coveo offers proven, high ROI solutions that meet one of today’s most critical IT challenges – managing the growing sea of disparate information.”
Coveo Executive Chairman Louis Têtu, also an investor in Coveo’s Series B financing, said, “Coveo has been growing steadily and today we see an impeccable confluence of marketplace demand, positive response to our strategy of innovation and our unique commercial model, and exciting product launches in the pipeline that will provide the impetus for even more growth.” He continued, “This investment provides the capital required to aggressively leverage these opportunities at this perfect time of inflection.” Tetu was formerly co-founder, chairman and CEO of Taleo, (NASDAQ: TLEO), in which Telesystem and Propulsion Ventures also invested.
Coveo plans to use the proceeds of the financing to fund its ongoing expansion. The company plans to hire an additional 60 employees over the next two years and accelerate its industry-leading product development.
Coveo CEO Laurent Simoneau said, “We are extremely gratified by the positive response of the finance community, including our existing investors, to our Series B round of financing. This investment is a testament to our consistent competitive wins supporting our aggressive growth, the marketplace validation of our business model, and the high financial value our solutions provide to our customers worldwide.”
About Coveo
Coveo is a leading provider of advanced enterprise search technology and information access solutions, including mobile search solutions, for high performance businesses. Coveo solutions enable composite views of information stored across heterogeneous systems, inside and outside the corporate firewall, including both structured and unstructured data. Such information mash-ups support cross-enterprise business processes, cutting down silos and enabling organizations to leverage existing IT assets. With Coveo, companies are no longer required to move information—they simply provide secure, intuitive access to information where it resides. Results include:
- Higher levels of employee collaboration and productivity
- Reduced costs and higher levels of satisfaction within customer service and call center operations
- Lower cost, faster and more effective enterprise information investigations
- More intuitive and effective ecommerce and self-service web-based operations
Coveo’s more than 600 global implementations contribute to the success of, among many others, AmerisourceBergen, CA, Deloitte, GEICO, ESPN, Haley & Aldrich, Lockheed Martin, Odyssey America, P&G, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rabobank, SNC-Lavalin, Spencer Stuart, Theodoor Gilissen Bankiers N.V., Children’s Hospital of Boston, Sony Ericsson, Macquarie Bank, Patek Philippe, IMS Health, Nexen, ICBC, SSQ Financial, and the U.S. Navy.
Information and video demos are available at www.coveo.com
About BDC Venture Capital
BDC Venture Capital is a major venture capital investor in Canada, active at every stage of a company's development cycle, from seed through expansion. Its focus is on technology-based businesses with high growth potential that are positioned to become dominant players in their markets. Established in 1975, BDC Venture Capital has invested in over 400 firms to date. It currently manages some $500 million in venture capital investments in the life sciences, information and communication technologies and energy, environment, electronics & materials sectors, as well as investments in funds. BDC Venture Capital recently ranked among the world's top 100 venture capital funds in a study conducted by Red Herring, a California-based publication covering the business of technology, following an eight-month analysis of more than 1,000 known and active venture funds across the globe. Visit www.bdc.ca for more information.
About Propulsion Ventures SEC
Founded in 1995, Propulsion Ventures is a top tier venture capital firm with $200 million under management. Propulsion actively invests in promising early-stage software companies in Canada. Propulsion Ventures, based in Montreal, is one of four Telesystem venture capital firms that operate worldwide. Telesystem has offices in Montreal, Boston, London and Johannesburg.
About the Solidarity Fund QFL
The Solidarity Fund QFL helps drive our economy. With net assets of $6.4 billion as of May 31, 2009, the Fund is a development capital company that through its RRSP channels the savings of Quebecers into investments in all sectors of the economy to help create and maintain jobs and to further Québec's economic growth. The Fund is a partner, either directly or through its network members, in 2,000 companies. It currently has nearly 571,000 shareholders and has helped, on its own or with other financial partners, to create, maintain and protect nearly 143,000 jobs. For more information, visit www.fondsftq.com.
Press contact:
Kate Lukach
Coveo
Office: 418.263.1111 x 233
Mobile: 973.723.6168
klukach@coveo.com