netASPx Receives Investment from GTCR

Venture capital firm GTCR Golder Rauner, LLC dropped $100 million yesterday to finance the launch of netASPx, a new player in the ASP market.

netASPx, founded in May 1999 to provide application service utilities, is targeting middle-market companies to help reduce the financial, technology and project implementation risks that go hand-in-hand with business software applications in the areas of business productivity, communication tools, business infrastructure, business process and e-commerce.

John Whiteside, chief executive officer, launched netASPx after building the first pure-play ASP, ServiceNet, which was an Andersen Consulting-GTE joint venture.

“We grew ServiceNet from start-up to revenues of $85 million and profits of $5 million in two years,” he said. “When Andersen Consulting was unwilling to IPO ServiceNet or accept growth capital from a private equity firm, I left with this seasoned management team and joined forces with GTCR.”

Chicago, Ill.-basedGTCR told ASP-News that it invests capital behind companies with exceptional management structure. “Our average investment is between $50 and $200 million in capital,” Philip Canfield, GTCR principal, said.

“The ASP market is in its infancy and netASPx is well positioned as a pure-play with integrated architecture which provides the potential for scale economics across customers and integration between applications within customers,” Whiteside said. “No other ASP has approached the market as netASPx has.”

Whiteside told ASP-News that netASPx has “hundreds of customers, the majority of which are active at any point in time,” but declined to provide further detail.

netASPx prices its traditional customer-site turnkey applications implementation services on a time and material basis. Hosting and application management services are priced on a customer-by-customer basis, depending on complexity, volume and service levels.

Whiteside pointed out that netASPx pursues business only if it is compatible with their overall structure. “This enables netASPx to avoid creating the silos which Web hosters and outsourcers have created, thereby enabling netASPx to leverage scale economics across customers on the service, not just within customers on a commodity infrastructure,” he said.

“The key to this business is selecting a target set of customers that are ready to adopt the ASP model and then to offer the right combination of applications,” Canfield said.

netASPx ISV partners include Sun , Lotus and Lawson.