OpenView Venture Partners Closes Fund II and Leads $7M Investment in Balihoo
BOSTON, MA – OpenView Venture Partners announced today that it closed its second fund and its first investment in that fund, leading a $7M investment in Balihoo, Inc.
OpenView Venture Partners II totals roughly $130 million in committed capital from leading institutional investors worldwide, as well as from members of the OpenView team. OpenView plans to use the capital to continue investing an average $5 million to $10 million per opportunity in expansion stage software, internet, and technology-enabled companies.
“Our success to date comes from our operational value-add capabilities, particularly our in-house consulting team, OpenView Labs, which is dedicated to assisting our portfolio companies. We plan on using the new fund to continue to grow the portfolio while continuing to enhance our capabilities,” said Scott Maxwell, Senior Managing Director at OpenView Venture Partners.
As part of the investment in Balihoo, OpenView Venture Partners’ Venture Partner George Roberts will join Balihoo’s Board of Directors. “Balihoo is a perfect fit with our investment model,” said Mr. Roberts. “Balihoo has had significant success to date and is rapidly scaling its business, which is a great opportunity for our team to immediately add value.”
Balihoo’s solution allows its customers to execute sophisticated local marketing strategies while maintaining brand consistency at a national level. By making it easy to create, plan, and implement local advertising campaigns, Balihoo reduces local marketing costs while at the same time improving local marketing effectiveness and return-on-investment.
“OpenView’s focus on our market and stage is a perfect fit for our needs,” said Pete Gombert, CEO of Balihoo. “We particularly look forward to engaging the OpenView Labs team.”
To learn more about OpenView, visit openviewpartners.com.
About OpenView Venture Partners
OpenView Venture Partners (openviewpartners.com) is an expansion stage venture capital fund with a focus on high-growth software, internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies with quickly ramping up sales, marketing and product development functions to best practice levels. The firm was founded in 2006 with an inaugural fund encompassing $100 million in committed capital. OpenView Venture Partners is based in Boston and invests on a worldwide basis.
About Balihoo
Balihoo (www.balihoo.com) is the premier provider of local marketing automation technology and services to franchises and national brands with local marketing needs. Balihoo enables enterprise-class marketing at the local level and gives national brands full visibility into all local marketing activities and results. A combination of web-based software and services, Balihoo enables national brands to dramatically reduce marketing expenses and immediately increases local sales revenue. For local affiliates, Balihoo takes the complexity out of local marketing – making it easy to quickly implement an expert, integrated marketing strategy that is consistent with the national brand.