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Cisco leads funding for supply chain management company

Largest participant in $27 million Series D round

By Jim Duffy on Wed, 12/02/09 - 9:28pm.

Cisco is backing a privately-held company that's developed a supplier information management system for enterprises. Cisco is the largest participant in a $27 million funding round announced this week for Aravo, which was founded in 2000 to develop an enterprise supplier collaboration platform to help simplify and reduce the cost of managing supplier information.

Aravo also said Cisco's WebEx collaboration technology will be integrated with Aravo's Supplier Information Management (SIM) system to facilitate real-time collaboration between buyers and suppliers. Aravo SIM is software-as-a-service/cloud-based, and includes specific applications in areas like risk management, diversity, compliance, and sustainability.

The $27 million Series D financing brings Aravo's total investment to $50 million. The Cisco investment is Aravo's first institutional investment -- all prior financing was provided by individuals.

Aravo and Cisco have multiple enterprise customers in common, including GE.

The Series D funds will be used to develop new products and to expand sales, marketing, and delivery capacity. Included in that will be development of a product that integrates WebEx and SIM.

The majority of Aravo's Series A, B, and C lead investors participated in round D, including Charles Schwab/Big Sky Partners and Stephen Friedman, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs. A select group of new investors also participated in the round, including William Harrison, the former chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase.

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The Cisco Subnet blog is written by Network World managing editor Jim Duffy Visit the Cisco Subnet home page daily and while you are there, subscribe to the Cisco Alert e-mail newsletter, which includes news and views generated by the Cisco Subnet community as well as Cisco-related stories on Network World and elsewhere on the Web.

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