TouchCommerce Raises $10 Million From Sierra Ventures to Fuel Its Market Leading Online Interaction Solution

AGOURA HILLS, Calif., April 8 TouchCommerce, a leader in the field of Pay for Performance Online Conversion, announced today it has raised $10 million in a financing led by new investor Sierra Ventures. The existing institutional investors Emergence Capital, Hudson Ventures, Dolphin Equity and Partech International participated in the financing as well.

TouchCommerce’s CEO Bernard Louvat indicated, “I am pleased to add to our syndicate of investors a fund with the reputation and experience of Sierra Ventures. We are looking forward to working with their partnership to continue building leading edge technologies and services to allow our clients to engage their customers more effectively online and make their websites a better place to purchase and obtain support.”

TouchCommerce’s solutions help high volume websites drive significant online sales lift while greatly enhancing the visitor’s experience. Client programs are built on a best-in-class real time customer analytics and live interaction technology platform tightly aligned with optimization services that enable online sales and care agents to deliver a targeted and personalized online experience on a pay-for-performance basis. “Sierra Ventures invests in market leading companies in high growth industries and TouchCommerce has a unique and strong edge that is being leveraged in today’s challenging economy by some of the largest companies in the world,” said Steve Williams, Partner at Sierra Ventures.

Since 1999, TouchCommerce has expanded from Agoura Hills, California headquarters to markets across the globe. They have long standing partnerships with dozens of top F1000 clients in the communications, financial services, retail and travel industries.

Jason Green (from Emergence Capital Partners) stated, “TouchCommerce is delivering dramatic ROI for its clients in a no-risk, minimal upfront cost, performance-based model which is why they continue to accelerate their growth despite the challenging macro-economic conditions.”

About TouchCommerce

TouchCommerce is a leading provider of Pay for Performance Online Conversion Solutions. Combining best-in-class real time customer analytics and live interaction technology with program optimization services, TouchCommerce enables sales and care chat agents to significantly increase online customer conversion and satisfaction. TouchCommerce’s 4th Generation Online Conversion Solution combines a pay-for-performance model with on-demand technology, fully outsourced program management and chat agents to enable its clients to exceed online sales and customer care goals. TouchCommerce clients are leaders in the telecom, cable, retail, travel, media, and financial services industries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific area. More information can be found by visiting www.touchcommerce.com.

About Sierra Ventures

Sierra Ventures is a Silicon Valley based private venture capital firm with US $1.5 billion under management with a focus across all areas of Information Technology. Current investments include companies based in the United States, Canada, China and India. Sierra Ventures has a history of working with entrepreneurs and management teams to originate and build new companies into large, profitable businesses. The Sierra Ventures team has diverse and complementary backgrounds and skills with extensive management, technical, and venture capital investing experience. The team includes individuals with strong operational experience founding and running startup companies that were subsequently purchased by industry leaders such as Marimba, (MRBA then BMC Software), Octane (ePiphany), OnLink (Siebel), Scopus (SCOP then Siebel), and Tivoli (TIVS then IBM). For more information on Sierra Ventures, visit www.sierraventures.com.

About Dolphin Equity

Dolphin Equity Partners, L.P. is a leading private equity firm based in New York. Dolphin Equity Partners, L.P. is a principal investment firm specializing in investments in expansion stage companies. The firm also invests in early stage companies, recapitalizations, and buy-outs. It typically invests in media and marketing services, enterprise services, technology, and communications. The firm primarily invests in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. It seeks to make equity investments between $1 million and $5 million per transaction. Dolphin Equity Partners, L.P. was founded in 1998 and is based in New York, New York. Our focus is building Software as a Service (SaaS), mobile-enabled technology, communication services, and new media businesses. More information can be found by visiting www.dolphinequity.com.

About Emergence Capital

Emergence Capital Partners, based in San Mateo, Calif., is the leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage Technology-Enabled Services companies. Its mission is to help build market leaders in partnership with great entrepreneurs. Emergence partners have funded and helped build more than 35 TES companies, more than any other early-stage venture firm. Emergence Capital has assets of over $325 million under management. For more information, visit www.emcap.com.

About Hudson Ventures

Hudson Ventures is a New York venture capital firm with over $170 million of capital under management and decades of experience in operating and growing technology companies. The team at Hudson Partners has successfully managed every phase of a company’s life cycle and the company’s diverse expertise enables value add in both leading investment syndicates and co-investing with other venture funds. For more information visit www.hudsonptr.com

About Partech International

Founded in 1982, Partech International is a leading global venture capital firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Israel. With $850M under active management, the investment team focuses exclusively on Information Technology. Specific areas where investment includes Software & Internet, Healthcare IT, and Communications & Components. In each of these sectors, the team diligently sources companies with high return potential and disruptive technologies. Some of Partech’s globally successful companies include: Ascend Communications, Alvarion, Business Objects, Cadence, CSG Systems, Digital Island, Informatica, Pentasafe, VeriFone and Vignette. Partech’s successful “International Venture Model” has been instrumental in building innovative start-ups into global leaders. For more information on Partech International, visit www.partechvc.com.

Source: TouchCommerce