Shacho Raises over $10 Million in Angel Capital

Based in Provo, Utah, Shacho, INC is a company with a temporary working name and its cofounder, Josh James has announced on May 19, 2011, that he has raised $10 million in angel capital from some prominent and highly visionary angel investors. These investors include Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com; Ron Conway; Lars Dalgaard, founder and CEO of Success Factors; Andreesen Horowitz, Mark Gorenberg, managing director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners; Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten in Japan; John Pestana, cofounder of Omniture; Dan Rose, vice president of Facebook; Paul Sagan, CEO of Akami; S. Steven Singh, chairman and CEO of Concur; and John Thompson, CEO of Symentic, and CEO of Virtual Instruments.

The startup has also received some institutional capital from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. This large pool of capital will allow the new company to grow and find a permanent working name. Though much of Shacho’s business has yet to be disclosed, Mr. James has stated that the capital will finance the aggressive marketing of his product, which does have something to do with the business intelligence industry.

Basically, the vast majority of the investors who were involved in this basic funding round are some of the world’s most prominent angel investors. Many of the angels who funded this company are also in the executive teams of other larger companies in the same or similar industry. The biographies of some of the angels involved in this funding round are listed below.

Besides being the chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com, Mr. Benioff is also a cofounder of the company and is a seasoned entrepreneur. He invests in those budding entrepreneurs whom he believes will disrupt the industry in the business services industry. Other achievements that Mr. Benioff has accomplished include being the cochairman of President George W. Bush’s Information Technology Advisory Committee from 2003 to 2005.

Another prominent angel involved in this funding round is Ron Conway. Mr. Conway is no stranger to successful angel investing. He has been a highly active angel investor for over 15 years and has also founded one of America’s largest angel syndicates, Angel Investors, LP, which was in business from 1998 to 2005. Besides being a successful and prominent angel investor, Mr. Conway is also a seasoned entrepreneur and has been a key part of National Semiconductor Corporation and has also played a key role in co-founding other major companies. Mr. Conway’s previous investments include Google, Paypal, Brightmail, and many other major startups of today.

There are many more angels involved in this funding round and all of them believe that the undisclosed product which Josh James has will greatly affect the business intelligence market and help companies protect their trade secrets and intellectual properties.

According to Mr. James, his executive team is highly ecstatic to have such a large group of angel investors who share the vision of Shacho. The most important thing about this round of angel capital is that many of the angel investors who have invested in this venture are also key members of the executive teams in some of the world’s largest SaaS companies.

Shacho has been doing quite well, for not yet completely disclosing its product and services. In 2010, the company has bought Corda Technologies, and Mr. James is the CEO of the new combined company. Mr. James is also quite a successful entrepreneur, because prior to starting this latest venture, he was also a cofounder of Omniture, which has become the fastest publicly traded software company in three years in a row.