Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Due Diligence on VIGN/Intraspect

Due Diligence on VIGN/Intraspect "Enterprise collaboration and groupware company Intraspect Software has been sold to public company Vignette for $20m in cash and stock. Old Friend Tom Gruber has been CTO there for quite a few years, but I doubt he and other officers are going to get rich from this exit: according to Venture Source, Intraspect had raised almost $85m in seven rounds of financing since 1996, and at one time was valued at $135m post-money. The last round was $33m, so even a 1x liquidation preference will account for all of the acquisition price.
This one's a cautionary tale not only on the late-90's investing boom/bust (Intraspect's history covers nearly the whole saga), but on the long selling cycles and difficulty of extracting revenue from businesses for software of this type. Social Software advocates and investors take note."

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