Press Releases

Authoria Secures $22.5 Million in Funding; Grows Bookings by 40 Percent

Increases in Total Bookings and Units Sold, One-Billion-Page-View Milestone Highlight Strong Momentum in First Half of 2007

Waltham, MA – September 28, 2007 – 

Authoria, Inc., the leader in integrated talent management solutions, today announced a new round of debt and equity funding totaling $22.5 million. New investors Horizon Technology Finance and Velocity Financial Group joined existing investors Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Austin Ventures, Van Wagoner Capital Management, CIBC Capital Partners, and others in this round. The funding will be applied to development of the company’s market-leading talent-management platform, and to extending its position as the premier on-demand provider of talent-management solutions.

“Authoria is extending its leadership of the Integrated Talent Management market,” said Tod Loofbourrow, Authoria’s Chairman and CEO. “As employers leverage Authoria’s talent- management applications to transform their workforces into engines driving business results, our integrated solutions for the key talent functions – recruiting, performance management, compensation, and succession planning – are powering their ability to achieve organizational goals. We appreciate the confidence of Menlo, Norwest, Austin, and our other existing investors, and welcome Horizon and Velocity to our team.”

During the first half of 2007, Authoria won significant new customers, drove exceptional revenue growth, received high ratings from analyst firms including Gartner, and enhanced the capabilities of its solutions. Specifically, Authoria:

• Increased total bookings by 40 percent, versus the first half of 2006;
• Increased total units sold by 70 percent, versus the first half of 2006;
• Increased new-customer additions by 23 percent, including 3Com Corp., Alcon Holdings, Becton, Dickinson and Co., Big Y Foods, GlaxoSmithKline, HCA, Inc., Hawker Beechcraft Corp., and L-3 Communications;
• Won additional business from existing customers including AON Corporation, Black & Decker, Chubb, PepsiAmericas, and Snap-On Inc.;
• Earned a “Positive” rating in Gartner’s May 2007 “MarketScope for Employee Performance Management Software, 2007”, covering performance management, compensation, and succession management¹;
• Held the 9th annual Authoria Customer Conference, the most successful to date, in April 2007;
• Launched Authoria Community, a collaborative online forum exclusively for Authoria customers;
• Launched Authoria Communications 2007, adding new capabilities to the market-leading application for personalized benefit and policy communications; and
• Surpassed the one-billion (1,000,000,000) mark in page views of Authoria applications delivered by the company’s on-demand services.

Also during the first half of 2007, numerous Authoria customers addressed industry or public forums regarding their experience in achieving business results through the use of Authoria’s applications. They included Aetna (at IHRIM 2007), Caterpillar, Inc. (at The Conference Board 2007 Strategic E-HR Conference), Compass Group (at ERE Expo Spring 2007), Finish Line, Inc. (in an HR.com webcast with Knowledge Infusion), and Hess Corporation (at The Conference Board 2007 Human Capital Metrics Conference).

About Authoria
Authoria® helps the world’s most competitive employers achieve superior business results, by optimizing the way they recruit, develop, compensate, retain, and engage top talent. Designed for business managers as well as HR professionals, the company’s integrated talent management (ITM) solutions enable more effective recruiting, performance management, compensation management, and succession planning across an organization. Authoria serves more than 300 large organizations and 4 million managers and employees with our on-demand Internet-based solutions. Customer companies include Aetna, Boeing, and Reuters.

¹Gartner “MarketScope for Employee Performance Management Software, 2007” by Jim Holincheck, May 2007.