Online business developer and e-business incubator Guidance Solutions Inc. this week announced
two private investment firms have made an equity investment of $46.6 million.
The investment includes approximately $35 million from a fund sponsored by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Inc. (CD&R) and
$11.6 million from BCI Partners (BCI).
Guidance, which is focused on transitioning traditional businesses and
existing brands into online businesses, said it will use the capital to
expand the company’s human resources and infrastructure for strategic,
technical and creative Web development.
In addition, the investment allows
Guidance to expand its services to include executive recruiting and seed
capital funding capabilities.
“We believe our model for developing online businesses offers traditional
companies and existing brands the right formula for creating successful
e-commerce enterprises, and we’re pleased that these investments will enable
us to transform more companies on the Internet,” said Robert Landes, CEO of
Guidance Solutions.
Founded in 1993, Guidance create equity partnerships in select cases with
traditional brands to transition their off-line brick-and-mortar assets to
online ventures.
The deal also allows CD&R and BCI to develop e-commerce strategies for their
respective portfolio companies.
“Guidance will enable CD&R to capitalize upon the growth in e-commerce as
traditional businesses determine how best to capitalize on the Internet,”
said Jim Rogers, a principal of CD&R.
“Many companies lack the human
resources, financial flexibility and incentive structures to rapidly develop
and implement e-commerce solutions within their own companies and Guidance
provides the external resources to jump-start the process.”
Both CD&R and BCI
will have representation on Guidance’s board of directors.
Guidance has recently formed a number of venture partnerships, which have
produced such Internet companies as RightStart.com, eNutrition.com and
CelebritySightings.com, among others.
