SoundBite Completes $5 Million Third Round Funding
Interactive Voice Messaging Leader Also Adds to its Boards
SoundBite Communications Inc., a leading provider of Interactive Voice Messaging solutions (IVM), today announced that it has closed a $5 million third round of follow-on venture capital funding from premier firms North Bridge Venture Partners, The Venture Capital Fund of New England, and Mosaic Venture Partners. This round brings the total investment in SoundBite to $19 million. The company also announced significant new additions to both its Board of Directors and its growing Board of Advisors.
SoundBite will utilize the funding to accelerate the company's growth both domestically and internationally by expanding sales and marketing activities as well as investing in the advancement of the company's industry-leading technology for interactive voice messaging solutions that drive direct response and maximize the ROI for customer communication programs.
"This is an exciting time for our company as we secure additional funding to finance the ongoing growth of SoundBite," said John McDonough, president and CEO of SoundBite Communications. "Our interactive voice messaging solutions hit the sweet spot in today's economy as they enable companies to reduce costs while helping them to retain their customers through better service and to enhance revenue through better response rates. This funding further strengthens our position as an industry leader and gives SoundBite the room to grow with our rapidly expanding market."
"North Bridge looks for investment opportunities in companies and technologies that we believe have long-term sustainable growth potential and our additional investment in SoundBite is the result of our very positive outlook on the company's future," said Jamie Goldstein, a partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. "We continue to be very impressed with the caliber of SoundBite's customer base and the company's ability to develop best-of-breed technology, provide superior customer service and gain market share."
Joining Goldstein of North Bridge, Carl Novotny of Venture Capital Fund of New England, and Vernon Lobo of Mosaic Venture Partners on the SoundBite Board of Directors is Worth Linen, founder and CEO of WLA Inc, a New York corporation providing consulting and marketing services to Book and Music Clubs, Publishers, Catalog/E-tailers, Credit-Card Marketers, and Venture Capital Firms. WLA also manages the direct-mail fundraising program for The USO, helping to support our troops now overseas. Mr. Linen is a well-known figure in the Direct Marketing Industry, having started his career in the 1970's at Wunderman Worldwide, where he ultimately became Vice Chairman. In 1991, he took over the failing RCA Record Club, relaunched it as the BMG Music Service, and grew it into a $900 million-per-year company with 11 million members, and record annual profits. In 1997, at the request of GE Capital, Mr. Linen became Chairman of The Signature Group. In two years he improved Signature's market share by 20 points versus its chief competitor, Cendant, and ultimately sold Signature for $950 million, enabling its parent company, Montgomery Ward, to emerge from bankruptcy. Mr. Linen has served two terms on the Board and Executive Committee of the Direct Marketing Association and as co-Chair of the DMA's Online Privacy Committee, as well as currently serving on the Internet Advisory Committee.
SoundBite has also appointed five members to its new Board of Advisors. The SoundBite Board of Advisors is made up of marketing and technology industry experts who provide strategic guidance and counsel to SoundBite as the company expands its leadership position in the interactive voice messaging market. Joining the SoundBite Board of Advisors are:
• Ed Volkwein - Mr. Volkwein has extensive marketing experience in consumer electronics, publishing, sporting goods, consumer package goods and food industries. He has held global management positions with Royal Philips Electronics and was responsible for the branding program that raised high awareness in the U.S. market. Mr. Volkwein served as vice president of marketing at Sega where he helped them rapidly expand to become the video game leader. He was also the President of Funk & Wagnalls, and world wide marketing head for Prince Tennis.
• John M. Coe - Mr. Coe is the president and founder of The Sales and Marketing Institute, a consulting, education and training firm focused on B2B database direct marketing. John speaks frequently at industry conferences, is a lead seminar provider for the Direct Marketing Association and writes numerous articles and white papers. His new book, "The Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Sales and Marketing," will be published this September.
• Gary Heatherington - Mr. Heatherington has over 25 years of senior level experience in the financial services market. He has served as CEO at Cyota Inc. and Bank One Canada, where he built that country's premier multi-channel marketing enterprise. Prior to that, Mr. Heatherington spent several years at MasterCard International where he was the president and CEO of Maestro Canada, president of MasterCard's Canada division and executive vice president of Global Markets for MasterCard International.
• Donna Thomas - Ms. Thomas served as the senior vice president of sales and marketing for Incanta, a broadband services and solutions company. Prior to joining Incanta, Ms. Thomas served as the senior vice president of national accounts for Discovery Networks, one of the top media brands in the world, where she was instrumental in driving the distribution of Discovery's full suite of cable channels. In 1999, Ms. Thomas was chosen as one of Electronic Media's Top Media Executives. She is a frequent speaker at cable industry shows and conferences.
• Ken Meyers - Mr. Meyers is the principal of Spearhead Partners, a firm specializing in entrepreneurial marketing and management. Prior to Spearhead, he was co-founder and CEO of Smartfoods, Inc., a branded salty snacks manufacturer now a division of Frito- Lay, Inc.. Mr. Meyers also served as CEO of Silverback Creative Corporation, a national marketing services agency focused on executing marketing programs for Fortune 500 packaged goods, hard goods and services companies. Mr. Meyers has been a recipient of the Ernst and Young/Inc. Magazine Entrepreneur of the year award and has received an SBANE New Englander award in marketing.
SoundBite's IVM solutions provide organizations with the ability to simultaneously contact large numbers of customers with true voice communications and to immediately interact with their responses. The company's clients are using the sophisticated technology to communicate with and serve their customers in a faster, more cost efficient manner with such applications as delivery confirmations, subscription and service renewals, payment reminders and collections, customer satisfaction surveys, and upselling and cross-selling. "SoundBites" incorporate a broad range of interactive functions including One Touch keypad response, Direct Connect to a live representative, Dynamic Intelligence script branching, Info Capture of personal data, Voice Recognition, and Personal Voice interactive message scripting.