News Facts:

• Zmags, the leading provider of rich media mobile and social merchandising, today announced two new additions to its global senior leadership team. Reflecting the company’s ongoing expansion into EMEA, Geoff Wright joins Zmags as vice president of sales for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regions; and Michele Pearl joins as vice president of product.
• Wright brings to Zmags more than 20 years of enterprise technology experience with 14 years in direct sales and sales management. He will be based out of Zmags’ London, U.K. office. Prior to Zmags, Wright was head of EMEA sales and marketing at Venda, the world’s largest on-demand enterprise e-commerce solutions provider. Wright also previously served in sales leadership roles at edocs, eCommera, Siebel Systems, IBM and AT&T.
• Based in Zmags’ Boston, Mass. headquarters, Pearl takes responsibility for the continued innovation of the Zmags platform. She brings almost 20 years experience delivering groundbreaking products and expanding markets and revenues. Previously, Pearl was the chief product officer of CustomMade Ventures and served in product leadership roles at Intuit and BzzAgent. She was on the founding team at Monster.com, where she spent 12 years working in product management, international development and strategy and acquisition integration.

Supporting Quote:

“Zmags’ continues to innovate, pioneering new ways for marketers and retailers to create brilliant and profitable brand and shopping experiences on tablets, smartphone and on the Web,” said Michael Schreck, president and CEO, Zmags.

“Attracting talent like Geoff and Michele is key to our growth plans. Michele’s experience and skill sets will be critical to the evolution of the Zmags platform worldwide; and Geoff’s proven track record of growth at Venda will help accelerate our growth in and commitment to the EMEA market.”

About Zmags

Zmags helps thousands of the world’s most progressive global retailers and brands design brilliant and consistent marketing and merchandising campaigns across social, mobile, tablet, and e-commerce platforms, driving product discovery and inspiring purchases. Using the Zmags on-demand rich media merchandising platform, leading brands have measurably and dramatically increased customer engagement, conversion rates, order size and brand loyalty without the burden of IT constraints. Zmags is among the fastest growing technology companies in North America, ranking #70 on the Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500.

Zmags is headquartered in Boston, MA. with European offices in London and Copenhagen. For more information about Zmags, please visit www.zmags.com.

News Facts:

• Zmags, the leading provider of rich media mobile and social merchandising, today announced that Michael Schreck, president and CEO, will be moderating tomorrow at the Xconomy Mobile Madness 2012: Total Mobility forum at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development (NERD) Center in Cambridge, Mass.
• The conference, which takes place on Wednesday March 14, 2012 from 1:00 to 5:30 p.m, addresses the future of the local mobile startup ecosystem, with advice for entrepreneurs considering a move into the mobile space in the Boston area
• Schreck will be moderating the “Mobile Content & Marketing Matures” panel from 4:05 p.m. to 4:35 p.m. with executives from Fiksu, Nexage and Celtra. The panel will address the evolution of mobile ads, marketing and content.
• Presenting companies at Mobile Madness include founders, CEOs and investors from many of Boston and the region’s most successful mobile companies.

Supporting Quotes:

“2011 was a pivotal year for the mobile marketing industry, as consumers’ adoption and expanding use of smartphones and tablets continued to skyrocket,” said Michael Schreck, president and CEO, Zmags.

“I’m looking forward to a robust discussion with fellow panelists about the challenges and opportunities for mobile technology, marketing and commerce – and howBoston’s technology community is responding with cutting edge innovations.”

About Zmags

Zmags helps thousands of the world’s most progressive global retailers and brands design brilliant and consistent marketing and merchandising campaigns across social, mobile, tablet, and e-commerce platforms, driving product discovery and inspiring purchases. Using the Zmags on-demand rich media merchandising platform, leading brands have measurably and dramatically increased customer engagement, conversion rates, order size and brand loyalty without the burden of IT constraints.

Zmags is among the fastest growing technology companies in North America, ranking #70 on the Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500.  Zmags is headquartered in Boston, MA. with European offices in London and Copenhagen. For more information about Zmags, please visit www.zmags.com.

Contact:

Samantha McGarry
InkHouse for Zmags
[email protected]
781-966-4107

Storage vendor Acronis has expanded its partnership with the Tech Data group by signing a UK-wide distribution deal with Computer 2000 (C2000).

The vendor makes disaster recovery products for use in physical, virtual and cloud environments, which are already distributed by the Tech Data group in four countries across EMEA.

The C2000 deal forms part of the vendor’s partner recruitment campaign, which will see the firm focus on signing SMB VARs to market Acronis’ wares.

The two firms are also planning joint go-to-market campaigns to lure partners, including an SMB-focused roadshow and telemarketing activities.

David Blackman, general manager for northern Europe at Acronis, confirmed to ChannelWeb that the vendor recently parted ways with long-standing distributor CMS Peripherals.

“This [C2000] relationship underlines the next stage in our UK development and the consolidation of our distribution strategy,” said Blackman in a statement.

“The scale of [C2000’s] marketing and sales operations, the scope of its reseller network and its focus on the SMB this year will be hugely beneficial to Acronis,” he added.

Blaine Raddon, most recently vice president of Americas partner sales at Juniper Networks (NSDQ:JNPR), has left Juniper to take a position at data backup and recovery specialist Acronis, CRN has learned.

Reached by CRN, a representative from Acronis confirmed Raddon’s hire and that his title is general manager, Americas. Acronis expects to make a formal announcement later this month, and Raddon started at the company last week.

Raddon has been a fixture in the Juniper channel for nearly six years, and was promoted to vice president, U.S. channel sales in March 2008 following a highly regarded stint as director of channel operations for Juniper’s Western region.

[Related: 30 Notable Recent IT Executive Moves]

Before Juniper, Raddon spent 19 years at IBM (NYSE:IBM), with a one-year break from 2000 to 2001 spent as vice president of sales and marketing for AppsMall, according to Raddon’s LinkedIn profile. He joined Juniper in February 2007, about a year after Frank Vitagliano — a fellow Big Blue alumnus — joined Juniper as senior vice president, worldwide channels.

Raddon’s move is one of several recent executive additions to Acronis, which late last year confirmed Alex Pinchev, former president of global sales, services and field marketing at Red Hat, as its new president and CEO.

Reached by CRN, Juniper confirmed Raddon’s departure and said that David Bankemper, most recently director, channel sales, has been promoted to fill Raddon’s role. Bankemper’s title is vice president, Americas partner sales and he reports to Vitagliano.

Bankemper is also a former IBM-er, having been a channel sales executive there from 1989 to 2005. He held channel executive roles at Lenovo from 2005 to 2008 before joining Juniper in March 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Massachusetts: Massachusetts based WAN optimization solutions provider Exinda has secured $12 million in its series B round of funding from Greenspring Associates.

The round also saw the participation of existing ventures OpenView Venture Partners. The company had earlier secured $6 million from OpenView Venture Partners in 2007. The current funds will be used to support the company to penetrate the market and achieve its targeted growth.

Michael Sharma, CEO, Exinda says, “The new funding further strengthens our financial stability and will enable us to continue executing on our aggressive growth strategy by maintaining the momentum and critical mass we have built up in the market to date.”

The company was founded in 2002 and is led by Michael Sharma who was previously the COO at PlateSpin. Large corporations and multinational companies may be able to afford to buy more equipment and increase bandwidth but SMBs do not have this luxury. Still, this is a very expensive option over the long term and if there is a cost-effective alternative even the large corporations can save valuable resources by implementing a smarter solution. Exinda provides solutions that enable network managers to address these and other challenges, helps maximize network resources, control operational costs, and improve the user experience.

“Having initially invested in Exinda in April 2007 we have been impressed with the company’s development and performance in converting its technology innovation into commercial success and are delighted to be participating in this latest financing round.Its solutions continue to maintain market relevancy, addressing many of the major IT challenges being faced by its customers around cloud, SaaS and real-time applications such as video and the impact of these on traditional network infrastructures.” said Firas Raouf, Venture Partner, OpenView Venture Partners.

OpenView Venture Partners is a Boston based expansion stage venture capital fund with a focus on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies, which invests worldwide. The firm was founded in 2006 and has a total capital under management of approximately $240 million.

It targets expansion stage technology companies which are achieving $2-20 million in annual sales and are interested in raising $5-15 million in capital. Few of its portfolio companies include Skytap, Nextdocs, Monetate, Prognoisis, Balihoo, Open-e, Reality Digital, and Intronis among others.

Greenspring Associates is a global venture capital investment firm which provides commingled fund and customized partnership to institutions and individuals in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It has over $2 billion under management and manages five venture capital funds-of-funds.

Few of its fund investments include Accel Partners, Alta Partners, August Capital, Battery Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners among the others. Its direct investments include Channel Advisor, cvent, Digital Chocolate, Intarcia, Entellus, Roundbox, Team Viewer, and Proofprint among the others.

Boston technology company Exinda said Thursday that it has secured $12 million in a Series B funding round.

Exinda provides support services for corporate customers that rely on telecommunications networks known as WANs, or wide area networks. Companies use these networks to manage their operations and connect with employees. The increase of mobile and remote users of these networks is putting additional strain on them. Exinda’s technology helps its corporate customers to optimize their wide area networks.

In a press release, Exinda said participants in its Series B round included existing investor OpenView Venture Partners of Boston and new investor Greenspring Associates.

The funds will be used as working capital as Exinda looks to continue executing on an “aggressive growth strategy” that includes international expansion, the company said.

Chris Reidy can be reached at [email protected].

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

Exinda, a provider of WAN optimization technology, has raised $12 million in Series B funding.

Investors included OpenView Venture Partners and Greenspring Associates. The money will be used for working capital and growth. The company is based in Boston.

PRESS RELEASE

Exinda, a global provider of WAN optimization solutions incorporating Unified Performance Management, today announced that it has secured $12M in a series B funding round. The round saw participation from existing investor OpenView Venture Partners as well as attracting new investment from Greenspring Associates. The funds will be used as working capital to support Exinda’s continued market penetration and targeted growth in the wake of a 116% increase in revenues during the course of 2011.

“Having initially invested in Exinda in April 2007 we have been impressed with the Company’s development and performance in converting its technology innovation into commercial success and are delighted to be participating in this latest financing round,” said Firas Raouf, OpenView Venture Partners.

“Its solutions continue to maintain market relevancy, addressing many of the major IT challenges being faced by its customers around cloud, SaaS and real-time applications such as video and the impact of these on traditional network infrastructures. Furthermore, its ability to enable branch office consolidated applications and services over the WAN, delivering a reliable, high quality user experience, overcomes many of the problems caused by the distributed nature of today’s enterprise.”

Unlike conventional approaches to WAN optimization which focus primarily on mass data compression and optimization, Exinda’s performance assurance technology introduces user and application profiling for precision optimization. Exinda’s assurance architecture targets 52 unique user and application attributes to optimize traffic to assure the network meets its business service level agreements.

Commenting on the news Michael Sharma, Chief Executive Officer at Exinda said, “We have made a significant investment in escalating our international sales operations over the last couple of years across all geographies. It is this investment that has resulted in us growing at a faster rate than that of the marketplace, thereby increasing market share and expanding global reach.”

“The new funding further strengthens our financial stability and will enable us to continue executing on our aggressive growth strategy by maintaining the momentum and critical mass we have built up in the market to date,” Sharma concluded.

About Exinda(R)

Exinda is a proven global supplier of next generation WAN Optimisation and Application Acceleration products. The company has helped over 2,500 organisations in over 80 countries worldwide improve the end user experience, manage application performance, manage congestion over the WAN and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com .

About OpenView Venture Partners

OpenView Venture Partners 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 Product, Go-To-Market, and Organizational and Operational functions to best practice levels. The firm was founded in 2006 and has a total capital under management of approximately $240 million. OpenView Venture Partners is based in Boston and invests on a worldwide basis.

About Greenspring Associates

Greenspring Associates, founded in 2000, manages five venture capital funds-of-funds with a combined total of over $2.0 billion in committed capital. Investors in these partnerships, which include family offices, corporate pension funds, endowments, foundations and other venture capitalists, are provided access to diversified portfolios of top-tier venture capital funds, such as Benchmark Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and also, a select number of high quality, later-stage, direct venture capital investments, in various segments including SaaS companies, such as ExactTarget and AtTask.