Embarking on an ambitious expansion plan, Nashua, N.H.-based Dirig Software has opened a Chicago office to better serve current and future customers in the Midwest.
“We have seen tremendous sales opportunities with companies in this area and we’ve added several key sales and pre-sales professionals to leverage these
opportunities,” said Chris Lesar, Dirig’s vice president of operations.
Four-year-old Dirig, which makes application and system management software, plans to open other offices on West Coast and in Europe later this year.
In 2001, the firm saw sales jumped 500 percent (Dirig is privately held and does not release detailed financial results). Additionally, it tripled staff, opened a new headquarters, and launched a new e-business transaction management
product, dubbed Fenway.
Dirig has partnerships with Hewlett-Packard, Aprisma, Micromuse, IBM, BEA, Macromedia and others. Customers include Silverback, Navic Networks and
Netvein.
The company was founded by Paul LaFrance and Tom Cloos. The pair met at Nashua, N.H.-based Calypso Software Systems in 1993 where
they were both young software engineers.
Three years later, Calypso was sold to Seagate Technology, a large Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company. Seagate shifted away from Calypso’s UNIX platforms.
With no further use for the technology, it began to dismantle the office.
In June 1997, LaFrance (now CTO) and Cloos (now vice president of professional services) decided to use their own money to start a new company. They named
it after their former boss at Calypso, the late Bryan Drigian.
Since then, the company has attracted backing from Longworth Venture Partners and JMI Equity Fund and Aprisma Management Technologies.