Illuminate Ventures Portfolio

Portfolio

Illuminate’s investments represent a cross-section of high-tech sectors and stages of business development – from Mobile and Cloud platforms to SaaS applications – all led by strong, entrepreneurial teams leveraging next generation technologies, services and business models. Looking for the future market leaders in enterprise cloud and mobile software? You’ll find them here.

Allocadia’s Marketing Performance Management cloud software transforms how marketers plan, budget, analyze, and optimize return on investment. Allocadia connects to leading customer relationship management, finance, social media, resource management, and marketing automation systems delivering the only way to provide complete visibility into marketing performance.

Allocadia News:

Gartner: Allocadia Named a 2015 Gartner Cool Vendor for CRM Marketing Applications – bit.ly/1FOtvJu
Inc.: Top 10 Women in Tech to Watch List – bit.ly/1Iv8P9W
Allocadia Named Top Tech Company in Rocket Builder’s “Ready to Rocket” List – bit.ly/1Na6Awz
Allocadia wins 2014 Technology Innovation Award from Ventana Research – bit.ly/1mE6BPu
Allocadia announces $7M Series A to Continue Exponential Growth and Expansion – bit.ly/1o1siJg

Bright Edge is the leading enterprise SEO platform and the trusted partner of the largest and most recognizable brands in the world. BrightEdge helps marketers rise above the increasing clutter of the web and drive organic revenue from search engines across the globe in a measurable, predictable way.

BrightEdge News:

HuffPo: Content Performance Marketing – Transformation of the Digital Organization huff.to/1MoyK94
TechCrunch: BrightEdge Launches New Data-Driven Writing Tool for Content Marketers tcrn.ch/19lmYKi
VentureBeat: BrightEdge closes $42.8M to guide marketers through dark seas of data bit.ly/19lOgho
TechJournal: SEO pioneer BrightEdge nabs $12.6M round, opens NY, London offices bit.ly/xNG7vV
Online Media Daily: BrightEdge Secures Share of Voice Patent bit.ly/IcvyGX
Washington Post: Google Plus: Sorry for the spam wapo.st/oHPp9r
TechCrunch: Facebook teams with BrightEdge to Help Brands Better Manage Social SEO tcrn.ch/lfD7Rh
Online Media Daily: Adobe Integrates BrightEdge, Opens Search Campaigns bit.ly/suvoYG
TechCrunch: BrightEdge:25 Percent of Companies Had Illegitimate Backlinks t.co/ryVmEAC
SEONews.Net: BrightEdge SEO Software Review bit.ly/gv7HJS
TechCrunch, VentureBeat: BrightEdge Unveils First SEO Platform that Enables Marketers to Manage Organic Search Based on ROI tcrn.ch/dfQKPm, bit.ly/cAtZyc

CaféX Communications is a leading provider of real-time customer engagement solutions. CaféX software for WebRTC and mobile B2C collaboration seamlessly connects customers to businesses from within mobile and web applications. Powerful developer toolkits and server components embed existing enterprise communications within applications on smartphones, tablets and desktops, enabling businesses to deliver omni-channel experiences characterized by consistent, integrated and personalized customer engagement across multiple interaction channels.

CaféX News:

No Jitter: Gartner’s “Cool Vendors in Unified Communications 2015″ ubm.io/1F9EFtj
PRNewswire: CafeX Closes on $21 Million Series B Raise prn.to/1Er9udZ
No Jitter: CaféX, Humanify Team on Customer Experience ubm.io/1BqRjhB
No Jitter: CaféX Wins Best of Enterprise Connect Award ubm.io/1p5bgt1
Telecom Reseller News: Introducing CaféX – Interview with CaféX SVP Products/Strategy bit.ly/1otcNqq
WebRTC World: CaféX Takes Collaboration to the Next Level bit.ly/1h0gkNg

CalmSea‘s Social Commerce Optimization solution helps leading retailers and brands monetize their social fanbases. CalmSea’s predictive platform applies deep customer behavior analysis to optimize the right promotion for the right consumer with the right enagement tactic, resulting in higher conversions and top-line revenues.

Acquired 12/2013 by Coupang

Korea Herald: Coupang Makes Huge Investment in Logistics bit.ly/1CaQZ9Z
TechCrunch: Korean E-commerce Leader Coupang Raises $300M Led by BlackRock bit.ly/1tFva1u
New York Times: New Funding Gives E-Commerce Site a $1 Billion-Plus Valuation nyti.ms/1gCS7fa
Wall Street Journal: Coupang Raises $100M at Over $1B Valuation on.wsj.com/Sh6smy
VentureBeat: Coupang Snags $100M at $1B+ Valuation led by Sequoia Capital bit.ly/1nwmCqs
Storify: The Arrival of the Social Data Cloud bit.ly/L6fbx8
MIT Technology Review: Watching Social Networks for Clues about Promotions bit.ly/k3ARcd
Benzinga: CalmSea’s Predictive Solution Helps Increase Facebook Revenue 5x bit.ly/kB86BC
WebSite Magazine: CalmSea Launches Social Commerce Optimization Platform bit.ly/iJkYLQ

ChannelEyes has built the world’s largest mobile channel acceleration platform for vendors to better connect with their indirect partners. The innovative solution drives new levels of engagement and sales enablement of agents, dealers, resellers, and extended sales teams.

ChannelEyes News:

ChannelEyes Announced Sponsorship of Channel Visionaries Conference bit.ly/1DZAbWZ
VSR (Vertical Systems Reseller): 2015 Industry Outlook: 46 Ideas from Channel Leaders bit.ly/1EUefJX
Albany Business Review: ChannelEyes Named to Best Places to Work in Capital Region bit.ly/1urQ83m
ChannelEyes Attracts Investment from Silicon Valley and NYC for Worldwide Sales Expansion and New Product Launch – t.co/mVLmB8yDf9

Hoopla.net helps organizations worldwide improve performance by steering the actions and behaviors of employees through visualization and game mechanics. Tightly integrated into 3rd party data systems such as Salesforce.com, companies can create stats, goals, actions, and competitions and display a variety of performance information on large screen animated displays and through a web browser.

Hoopla.net News:

Silicon Valley Business Journal: Hoopla, sales motivating startup, snags $8 million bit.ly/1j2Losx
Hoopla.com: Hoopla Raises $8M in Series B Funding bit.ly/1fk2o9b
CRMBuyer: It’s a Brand New Sales Game bit.ly/10K8y1M
Virtual Strategy: Hoopla closes $2.8 million series A financing, adds 25 new customers bit.ly/M7aiqT
VentureBeat: Hoopla funding announced bit.ly/Mimdkc

Influitive helps considered-purchase companies (B2B, high price B2C) generate qualified leads and shorten buying processes. The Influitive AdvocateHub massively increases the amount of customer advocacy that is so critical to accelerating today’s social buying processes – more referral leads, more reference calls, social proof assets and social media interaction. The defining characteristic of the product is a superior advocate experience, delivered through a fun, game-like interface.

Twitter: @Influitive | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Influitive

Influitive News:

Virtual-Strategy: Influitive Announces Advocamp: The First Conference Celebrating Advocacy In Business bit.ly/1BqUA0l
AlwaysOn: Influitive Recognized as a 2015 OnCloud Top 100 Winner by AlwaysOn: prn.to/1GJpDJz
Deloitte: Influitive named one of Canada’s companies-to-watch in the 2014 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards bit.ly/1v9lNqK
VentureBeat: Mark Organ – Pulling in an army of investors has more perks than you think bit.ly/1yuCTil
AlwaysOn: Influitive named to 2014 Companies to Watch List bit.ly/1kSfNN2
TechCrunch: Influitive acquires social inbox startup Engagio to aid in “advocate marketing” opportunities tcrn.ch/VBy01m
VentureBeat: Influitive puts the sexy back in B2B marketing with over $11M this year bit.ly/RB9nFt
TechVibes: Influitive named one of Canada’s 20 hottest innovative companies bit.ly/VT8moe
IT Business: Influitive showcases social marketing at Dreamforce launch bit.ly/ShiRPi
TechCrunch: Influitive Raises $3.75 Million Seed Round tcrn.ch/PPo0wO
Ektron: Engaging your consumer advocates with Influitive. bit.ly/Q56m8I
Yonge Street: Buzz-building stealth start-up Influitive is staffing up bit.ly/MoqKky

Opsmatic builds tools to free ops teams from time-consuming mundane tasks so they can play a more strategic role, proactively improving performance, deployments, and reducing downtime. Product is currently in Beta.

Peerlyst offers tech vendors a powerful product-centric social network and marketing tools to engage in meaningful, timely conversations with enterprise IT customers and prospects that are demanding more relevant content and peer interaction.

Peerlyst News:

ThirdCertainty: Peerlyst Crowd-Sources Security Tips bit.ly/1Ibohax
TechRepublic: Spiceworks and Peerlyst communities mix IT security advise with social media: tek.io/1EdfMdU
Utlizer: Peerlyst to Disrupt the Traditional Industry Research Model: bit.ly/1qcqw3m

Red Aril delivers a Data Management and Audience Optimization Platform (DMP) that puts websites and advertisers in charge of their audience data, enabling them to profit from audience targeting and site personalization. Red Aril’s DMP helps its customers reach quality target audiences by using predictive modeling that integrates all data — any source, any type. Utilizing these models, Red Aril lets sites effectively use data to drive revenue.

Acquired 12/2011 by Hearst Corporation – iCrossing

AdExchanger: iCrossing Acquires Red Aril -The acquisition of Red Aril enables iCrossing to build connected brands at a more personal level with clients’ most valuable audiences in real time. bit.ly/v94JZw

Sense Platform is building the right way for teams and enterprise to do data science — a radically better data science platform that supports the most powerful tools available and is delivered at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.

Sense News:

VentureBeat: Sense Launches it’s Data Science Collaboration Tool: bit.ly/1Lw3Drz
BusinessInsider: This New Startup Let’s Math Nerds Unleash Their Brilliance on Your Business: read.bi/1xASAlj
Launch: Introducing Sense – A Next Generation Platform for Data Science: bit.ly/1CxKe43

Wild Pockets is bringing 3D to your web browser. Game developers and designers can sign up on the Wild Pockets website and instantly begin developing interactive 3D content, such as games, simulations and interactive ads. Content developed in Wild Pockets can be embedded and distributed instantly on any website anywhere online, similar to a YouTube video. A built-in micro-transaction system and marketplace enables developers to monetize the content they have developed.

Acquired 12/2010 by Autodesk, Inc. (ADSK)

VentureBeat: Autodesk acquires WildPockets 3D Design Platform bit.ly/tBCV9B
Blomberg Businessweek: Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs 2009 bit.ly/lEGvyD

Xactly Corporation is the market leader in on-demand sales performance management. The company’s flagship product, Xactly Incent, enables sales and finance executives to design, implement, manage, audit and optimize sales compensation management programs easily and affordably. Xactly solutions automate the process of aggregating data from disparate systems into a secure, hosted repository, and enable companies to leverage this business data, which is the lifeblood of sales performance management. Xactly helps companies improve operational performance, optimize sales effectiveness, proactively manage risk and compliance, and maximize profits. The Xactly family of products is used by sales and finance executives, compensation analysts, sales operations and sales professionals across a variety of industries, ranging from SMBs to large enterprises.

Xactly News:

WSJ: Big-Data Company Shines Light on the Dark World of Women’s Pay on.wsj.com/1wE4Ljx
GreatRated: Xactly Named Best Place to Work bit.ly/ZDpkzS
ZD Net CRM WatchList: CRM Watchlist 2014 Elite specialists Named zd.net/1jtVz94
Virtual Strategy Magazine: Xactly Customer Named Ventana Research Award Winner bit.ly/T8hJ5X
WSJ: Xactly named to the WSJ’s “Next Big Thing” Top 50 start-ups list (for 2nd year) on.wsj.com/OgTa5v
AlwaysOn: Announcing the OnDemand 100 Top Private Companies bit.ly/GEoZBf
SF Gate: Xactly Selected as Finalist in CODiE Awards bit.ly/GMJ3Oy
Ventana Research: Xactly What Sales Needs To Improve bit.ly/tzS20m
CRM Magazine: Xactly Wins CRM Magazine’s Market Leader Award bit.ly/vhbTn5
USC Marshall School of Business: Chris Cabrera, Xactly CEO, Entrepreneur of the year bit.ly/w0v7f1
Sales 2.0: The Art and Science of Compensation and Sales Performance Management bit.ly/vdgrnv
Benzinga: Xactly Corporation Wins CRM Excellence Award for 4th Consecutive Year bit.ly/lKeD3W
VentureBeat: Sales compensation manager Xactly Raises $7.5M bit.ly/b3bHeV
THINKstrategies: Xactly Named Best of SaaS Showplace Award Winner bit.ly/i7qtUW

Yozio makes it easy for organizations with mobile apps to develop a deep understanding of their users and drive acquisition, engagement, revenue and retention. Its mobile conversion tracking software shows app owners where their installations are coming from in real time so they can identify their most important marketing channels. Yozio offers app developers control and insight into how to optimize user experience and when and how to enable viral features to attract more users.

Yozio News:

OaklandLocal: Yozio Helps Apps Become the Next Big Thing bit.ly/1HiYYDe
SF Chronicle: Horrible Commute Is A Boon to East Bay Tech Firms bit.ly/1GpUqyz
VentureBeat: Yozio Lets App Makers Spot Where New Users Are Coming From bit.ly/17mLD0F
Live-Work Oakland: Yozio – Startup Optimizes Mobile Apps bit.ly/1hH1xo3
ZD Net CRM WatchList: Yozio: an Oakland Start-up that Optimizes Mobile Apps bit.ly/PPYpvJ
AirBNB Blog: Hacking Word of Mouth: Making Referrals Work for AirBNB bit.ly/1m8qZDc

PRIOR REALIZED INVESTMENTS

Digital Fuel – Acquired (NYSE: VMW)

PBN – Acquired (NASDAQ: TLEO – ORCL)

Vivant Corporation – Acquired (NASDAQ: EVLV – ORCL)