News Facts:

Cloud9 Analytics, a leading provider of SaaS business analytics for line-of-business managers, today announced it has closed its Series C financing for $8 million. Cloud9 has defined the next generation of performance management solutions for the front office, focused on accelerating growth and automating day-to-day management processes for sales, marketing, service, support and others in the line of business. Instead of cost control that back office performance management solutions deliver, Cloud9 solutions deliver operational focus on improving revenue and business performance.

The investment was led by Mayfield Fund, with participation from existing investors InterWest Partners and Leapfrog Ventures.

Rajeev Batra of Mayfield Fund joins the Cloud9 Analytics Board of Directors.

A recent IDC Research report put today’s SaaS business analytics market at $1 billion, with a forecasted 22 percent CAGR for the next five years1.

The financing will be used to:

* Accelerate innovation on Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator, Cloud9’s flagship service
* Build out Cloud9’s roadmap for performance management applications for the front office
* Extend the company’s unique cloud-based data management automation platform to enable third-party application development.

Supporting Quotes:

“This additional investment not only validates the market’s acceptance of Cloud9 solutions with more than 90 customers worldwide, it underscores the tremendous pent-up demand for performance management solutions that span the entire front office to maximize revenue and improve performance,” said Swayne Hill, President and CEO of Cloud9 Analytics. “In the past, only Finance had purpose-built performance management applications. The burgeoning growth of CRM in the front office, however, has created a significant need for applications that help management plan their business, monitor performance, look for exceptions, and re-plan. That is the market opportunity Cloud9 seeks to fill.”

“Cloud9 has gained impressive market traction with its performance management applications built on a highly scalable and extensible platform,” said Rajeev Batra, Partner, Mayfield Fund. “Besides Cloud9’s fundamentally disruptive technology, we are impressed by the team’s deep analytics domain expertise and vision for the market.”

About Cloud9 Analytics

Cloud9 Analytics is the global leader in SaaS performance management applications delivered directly to line-of-business managers. The Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Suite enables sales management and operations to more effectively manage their sales pipeline and forecast. The result is a dramatic increase in forecast accuracy, increased win rates and higher CRM adoption. Powered by patent-pending row-versioning database technology, Cloud9’s applications deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance and zero IT support. Cloud9′s customers include Covad Communications, Data Domain, Siemens, Thermo-Fisher Scientific, and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, California. For more information, please visit www.cloud9analytics.com

1 Worldwide Business Analytics Software as a Service 2009 – 2013 Forecast, IDC #221320, December, 2009

Cloud9 Analytics
Don Tyler, 650-561-7854
don.tyler@cloud9analytics.com
or
The Racepoint Group
Nicole Colwell, 415-694-6702
ncolwell@racepointgroup.com

Like.com, the visual search engine started by Munjal Shah, Burak Gokturk, and Azhar Khan has raised a substantial round of funding.  Like.com raised $32 million in Series C from Menlo Ventures, Crosslink Capital, BlueRun Ventures, and Leapfrog Ventures.  Through this round of funding, Prazan Vazirani from Menlo Ventures joined the Like.com Board of Directors.

Through this round of funding, Like.com is believed to be above a $100 million valuation.  Employees that have shares in the company also had the opportunity to sell shares through the funding process as well.  Like.com launched in November 2006 and their strongest service is matching goods that are displayed in a picture.

Like.com made about $1 million in revenue in about one year.  Now they are making about $20 million.  And they are planning to launch a UK version of the site.  The company also created an iPhone application called LikeThis that allows phone users to take a picture of an item and find similar items for sale.

A few months ago, Like.com started placing ads on Facebook that matched fashion products that linked to a user’s profile picture.  For example, if I was wearing Oakley sunglasses on my profile picture, the ad will appear alongside with sunglasses that look very similar.

LikeThis is also available on the Like.com website for testing.  To test it out, I uploaded a picture from Entourage.  Then I highlighted the shoes of the guy in the green shirt (center).  After uploading, Like.com will ask you which attributes are most important to you between Color, Shape, Pattern, or all three equally.  I selected all three are equally important to me.  Like.com asked for my e-mail to let me know when they are done analyzing the photo.

Once I get an e-mail back, I’ll let you know how accurate the results are.  Look for an update on this post.

Update: Below are the results

Like.com allows users to search for consumer products by specific details, colors, and find goods worn by celebrities.  Like is working on a technology that allows users to upload photos and find similar goods.  When consumers click through the goods on the search engine and buys it from retailers, Like.com shares the revenue.  Like.com’s revenue is rumored to be close to $20 million.

To date, Like.com’s total funding is roughly $19.5 million, provided by Bay Partners, BlueRun Ventures and Leapfrog Ventures.  Like.com is a spin-off from Riya.com.  Riya.com was founded by Munjal Shah in 2004.  Riya was rumored to be courted for an acquisition by Google 3 years ago for roughly $40 mill [GigaOM].

Related Links:
1. Like.com
2. Riya.com

Like.com has receives about 3 million unique visitors per month including many hits from AdWords. Like.com used to be called Riya and back then it focused on recognizing people in pictures. Once the company realized that this model was not useful for making much money, it made the switch. Like.com uses a technology dubbed and trademarked, Likeness Technology.

Likeness Technology’s key features include:
1.) Likeness Search – search by image, not text
2.) Like Detail – finds items that have specific features (buckles, straps, etc.)
3.) Like Color – find color variants
4.) Like Celebrity – Finding clothing and accessories that celebrities wear
5.) Like Upload – upload your own snapshots and items to find similar products (coming soon)

The company previously raised $19 million.