Josh James, Omniture Co-Founder and Former CEO, Raises $10 Million Angel Round from Industry Leaders
PROVO, Utah—May 19, 2011—Shacho Inc. (a temporary working name) announced today that Josh James has raised $10 million in angel funding from some of the most esteemed visionaries and leaders in the technology industry. These angels include individual investors, venture capital firms that often participate in early-stage rounds, as well as individuals who were on the board of directors of Omniture. Omniture is a SaaS company co-founded by James who served as its CEO until selling the business to Adobe in 2009 for $1.8B.
A partial list of angel investors includes:
- Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, salesforce.com
- Ron Conway/David Lee, SV Angel
- Lars Dalgaard, Founder and CEO, SuccessFactors
- Andreessen Horowitz, LLC
- Mark Gorenberg, Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
- Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO, Rakuten (Japan)
- John Pestana, Co-Founder, Omniture
- Dan Rose, Vice President, Facebook
- Paul Sagan, CEO, Akamai
- S. Steven Singh, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Concur
- John Thompson, Chairman, Symantec; CEO, Virtual Instruments
- Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
The angel round will be used to aggressively fuel James' yet-to-be-unveiled venture that is solving what James calls a paradox in today's business intelligence market.
“We are fortunate to have attracted such high-caliber angels whose experiences and insights will help accelerate our aggressive plans for growth; and given what we are planning to do, it's apropos that we have CEOs and founders of the four largest SaaS companies,” said James. “Today's business intelligence solutions leave executives with blind spots because the information they receive is not real time and it's often inaccurate and incomplete. We are on an aggressive path to fix this pervasive problem that has yet to be addressed.”
John Thompson, Chairman of Symantec and CEO, Virtual Instruments, said, “Small companies are hotbeds for innovation. I am pleased to lend my experience in enterprise software and in growing global companies to this exciting new venture.”
WPP, the world's leading marketing communications services firm, is a strategic investor in this round. WPP Chief Executive Officer Sir Martin Sorrell said, “Josh understands the issues and challenges of senior-level executives as well as the need for SaaS-based solutions that generate clear ROI for clients. WPP is pleased to be among his investors.”
About Shacho Inc.
Shacho Inc. is a technology holding company founded in 2010 by Josh James to address fundamental problems in the business intelligence market. As one of the first steps to deliver on his vision, Shacho bought Corda Technologies, and Josh is the CEO of the combined company. A new company name, strategy and solutions will be announced later this year.
Josh James is co-founder and former CEO of Omniture, a company he started in 1996, took public in 2006 at age 33, and sold to Adobe three years later. Under his leadership, Omniture was the first or second fastest-growing public software company three years in a row, and Omniture grew to become the second-largest SaaS company with $400 million in sales and 1,700 employees. Prior to Omniture, Josh co-founded an interactive agency and two other businesses that were later sold to Jupitermedia and VeriSign. He was the recipient of the 2006 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Technology Entrepreneur of the Decade by Brigham Young University, and was recognized by Fortune Magazine in its 2009 feature “40 Under 40.”
Media Contact:
Julie Kehoe
914-374-8622