EDEN PRAIRIE, MN - Interelate, Inc., the leading provider of comprehensive customer intelligence solutions and Web-based marketing infrastructure, today announced its fourth round of funding in which it raised $45 million. Interelate plans to use these funds to expand its business and accelerate its path to profitability.
Boston-based Great Hill Partners managed and led the round with additional investments from The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS); Carlson Marketing Group; Dell Ventures; C.E. Unterberg, Towbin; and William E. Simon & Sons.
"Interelate's solutions combine industry-leading technical, analytical, and strategic marketing expertise with best-in-class CRM software and hardware to offer clients a complete marketing services infrastructure," said Wade Myers, Interelate's chairman and CEO. "This investment is a validation of Interelate's business model and the value proposition we bring to our clients."
"Interelate offers a powerful turn-key marketing infrastructure to help its clients build profitable customer relationships," said Stephen F. Gormley, managing partner of Great Hill Partners, who will join Interelate's board of directors along with colleagues Patrick D. Curran and Vikram Mansharamani. "We evaluated approximately 100 hosted solutions providers over the last six months. Interelate clearly emerged as the most promising next-generation business service provider."
Interelate currently has 45 customers for its hosted customer intelligence solutions, including Nissan, Holland America Line, GMAC, Proctor & Gamble, and ING. Interelate helps clients develop profitable relationships by delivering customer acquisition, retention, cross-sell, optimal pricing and up-sell capabilities. Interelate tailors its marketing infrastructure services to the retail, travel and leisure, financial services and telecommunications industries. According to Gartner Group, the market for CRM services is expected to reach $40 billion by the end of 2001.
"Interelate's CRM services provide companies with a deeper understanding of their customers," said James Ryan, president and CEO of Carlson Marketing Group, who will also be joining Interelate's board of directors. "Interelate's services are a perfect addition to our relationship marketing strategy for clients."
This $45 million round comes in addition to $30 million in private funds previously raised by Interelate, bringing the total investment in the company to $75 million. Returning investors joining Great Hill Partners in this round include Goldman Sachs, Dell Ventures, and William E. Simon & Sons.
About Interelate
Interelate provides comprehensive customer intelligence solutions and Web-based marketing infrastructure to meet the next-generation customer relationship management (CRM) needs of Global 2000 companies. Interelate's turn-key solutions help marketing and business executives increase the return on their marketing investment by enabling them to better understand their customers and take action to improve the relationship with those customers through data mining, campaign management, personalization and multi-channel real-time recommendation. Interelate's solution is offered at a predictable monthly fee and combines best-in-class packaged CRM software with relevant third-party demographic, behavioral and attitudinal data; propensity scores to predict customer actions; and vertical, technical, CRM, and database marketing expertise. Interelate's partners include E.piphany, Carlson Marketing Group, and Yankelovich Partners. Headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, the company's European office is located in The Netherlands. Interelate can be reached at (952) 908-8000 orwww.interelate.com.
About Great Hill Partners
Great Hill Partners is a leading Boston-based investment firm that provides equity financing and strategic guidance to data communications, IT infrastructure, telecommunications, media, information, education and business service companies. Recent investments include K-Solutions, ManagedStorage International (MSI), ManagedOps.com, Dame Broadcasting, Edge Connections, High-Tech Institute, SmartMail, DURO Communications and Horizon Telecom International. The firm has more than $1 billion in capital under management from institutional investors including leading commercial and investment banks, state and corporate pension funds, university endowments and private trusts.
