Proficiency, a Marlborough, Mass., firm that makes collaboration software for manufacturers and their suppliers, has
raised $27.4 million in financing for product development, sales and marketing.
New investors Carmel Ventures, Genesis Partners, Lehman Brothers, Koor Corporate Venture Capital, and Polaris Venture Capital the round, the company’s
second. Previous backers Charles River Ventures and Eucalyptus Ventures, an affiliate of J.P. Morgan Partners, also participated.
Roy Iscovitsch, Proficiency’s president and CEO, said the size of the commitment and the quality of funders “validates the strength of Proficiency’s value proposition
and our anticipated impact in the marketplace.”
As part of his firm’s commitment, Shlomo Dovrat, founder and general partner of Carmel Ventures, joins Proficiency’s board. Previously, Dovrat was a software
entrepreneur who has taken companies public.
“We are delighted to lead this round, and to participate in Proficiency’s vision to enable efficient engineering collaboration between manufacturers and their suppliers,”
Dovrat said. “We believe that there is a tremendous opportunity for the company to deliver significant benefits to both kinds of companies.”
Proficiency’s technology allows customers to extract design information from proprietary systems, and to manage it from a central location. The information can be
used by several departments to improve requests for proposals and other collaborative design efforts.
The company’s first product, Proficiency Collaboration Gateway, is currently in testing with Ford, Lockheed Martin, Catepillar and others, and is slated for release
this summer. Proficiency was founded in 1998 and is privately held.
