firstRain Closes $11 Million Series A Funding Round; Industry Veteran Steven Walske Joins As...

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 15, 2001

firstRain(TM), Inc., the leading provider of standards-based software products that enable the timely access, monitoring and delivery of information from the Internet and corporate Intranets, announced today that it has

The Company had been seeking $8 million in funds to fuel its next stage of growth. It is intended that the funding will be used to further the development of its software technology and to bring its first products to market starting this fall.

Allegra Partners and Diamondhead Ventures are leading this first round of institutional investment for firstRain, which also includes investment from St. Paul Venture Capital and Myriad Investments. Previously, the company had raised $2.3M in seed investment for the development of its core technology from individual investors that includes Rajat Gupta, CEO of McKinsey and Company, John Hennessy, President of Stanford University, and Greg Papadopoulos, Chief Technology Officer of Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW).

"We were impressed by the depth of technical talent at firstRain and the broad capability of the technology," said Richard W. Smith, Managing Director with Allegra Partners in New York. "The fact that they were able to attract a greater funding level than originally sought demonstrates that firstRain represents a strong investment. Their location in the heart of New York City positions them to tap the significant talent and prospect base of this resurgent city." According to Raman Khanna, Managing Director with Diamondhead Ventures, "firstRain has the potential to dramatically change the way people use the growing array of information and services available via the Web".

firstRain also announced that industry veteran, Steven C. Walske, has joined firstRain as its Chairman. Mr. Walske led Parametric Technology Corporation (NASDAQ: PMTC) as the Chief Executive Officer from a 1986 to 2000. Under Steve's guidance, Parametric, a supplier of mechanical design and manufacturing software, established itself as one of the largest software-only companies in the world with revenues in excess of $1 billion. He guided the company from its start-up phase through its initial public offering in December 1989 to its position as market leader in mechanical design automation software.