On Monday (Jul 24th), MimEcom, describing itself as a leading provider of Application & Infrastructure Management (AIM) services for e-businesses, received $100 million in a second round of funding.
Baker Capital and Azure Capital Partners led this round with the largest investment either firm has made in the infrastructure management services space. Additionally, Edward Scott, co-founder and general partner of Baker Capital, joined MimEcom’s board of directors.
MimEcom sells ASP infrastructure to major e-commerce sites.
“The significant amount of funding and accelerated use and acceptance of outsourced e-commerce infrastructure management is a strong indicator that MimEcom is bound to be a dominant player in this rapidly emerging market,” said Scott. “MimEcom’s approach to application and infrastructure management for high-volume e-commerce is clearly seen as a solid solution that can provide the level and quality of service the Global 2000 and large-scale, Internet-centric companies need to be successful in today’s competitive e-commerce world.”
MimEcom’s clients include Kaptest.com, K-Mart’s BlueLight.com, and smaller clients such as the cooking siteTavolo.com (formerly Digital Chef).
MimEcom also consults on business strategy. David Tapper, senior analyst at IDC commented: “MimEcom’s approach to managing e-commerce application infrastructures is to provide customers the option of outsourcing not only the management of their existing sites, but also the planning and development of new initiatives.”
The company also made waves on Jul 24th by poaching Darl Davidson as its CEO from Electronic Data Systems (EDS), where he had been president of “a strategic business unit” and was responsible for EDS’ Delphi account.
The company also named Sharmila Shahani, former Netscape/AOL VP, as VP marketing.
The company announced new customers Garden.com and Boats.com.
The company also announced new partnerships with Sun Microsystems, application server provider Art Technology Group, and systems integrator Rare Medium.
Stephanie Moore, an analyst for Giga Information Group, notes that MimEcom supports a limited set of system platforms on the grounds that “its platforms represent the best in breed and [that] specializing in a small number of technologies provides a higher quality and more comprehensive service.
“Given MimEcom’s specialization, MimEcom clients can expect an easier transition and ramping up phase, and more efficient upgrade cycles,” she concludes.
The bottom line, however, is customer satisfaction. BlueLight.com’s chief web officer Brian Sugar said: “By partnering with MimEcom, we at BlueLight can focus on marketing and merchandising products, while MimEcom allows us to deliver a superior user experience to our consumers through excellent site responsiveness and transaction security.”
