Agilera Announces $80m Funding Round

Agilera, the ASP joint venture set up by hosting provider Verio, Inc and IT services company Ciber, Inc , has raised a new round of $80m equity financing.

The new funding, led by First Union Capital Partners LLC, significantly expands the list of investors behind Agilera, which was formed in February this year by Verio, Ciber and venture capital firm Centennial Ventures. See related ASPnews.com story, Verio-Ciber venture strides out, Mar 2nd 2000.

In addition to First Union, other new investors joining in the latest round were investment firms Providence Equity Partners, Lonetree Partners and CE Unterberg, Towbin.

“We are excited about Agilera’s unique approach to the market,” said Bill Dering, who heads the ASP research team at CE Unterberg, Towbin. “We believe ASP solutions will evolve to include a deep level of business process expertise, content, application integration and other value-added services. Agilera’s strategy encompasses these next generation solutions.”

Agilera, which offers enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship and other applications from vendors including Lawson Software, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft, also provides application integration and additional business services. It has created its own enterprise portal platform to deliver applications to clients, tailored to individual employee roles. See related ASP News story on internetnews.com, Agilera Delivers Customizable Browser-Based Interface to Customers, Jun 7th 2000.

More than half of the $80m investment announced today came from existing investors Verio and Centennial Ventures, whose relationship dates back to Verio’s foundation. Verio invested $20m in this round, making it Agilera’s largest investor with a total commitment of $50m. Centennial remains the second largest investor with a stake of over $35m.

Co-founder Ciber helped facilitate the latest financing but did not participate. It was the spin-off of its application outsourcing division, Ciber Enterprise Outsourcing, that created the basis of the new company.

The total investment in Agilera to date now stands at $125m, before adding the value of the Ciber spin-off, estimated at $32m at the launch of the venture.

Agilera’s customer base includes established and emerging companies such as Heilig-Meyers, SCI Companies, MD Helicopters and Legend Airlines.

It said it will use the financing to fuel the expansion of its general operations, including the development of its state-of-the-art operations centers and the expansion of its business model.