Clavis secures €2.1m venture funding

Dateline: 20 April 2009

Dublin-based data quality software start-up Clavis Technology has closed a €2.1 million Series A funding round, led by Delta Partners and Scottish Equity Partners (SEP). Enterprise Ireland and software industry veteran Jim Mountjoy also participated.

Clavis Technology is at the forefront of a new generation of “cloud computing” or Software as a Service (SaaS) companies that is changing the way businesses and government organisations use information technology. Cloud computing is the provision of computing functionality over the Internet – from “the cloud”. SaaS is a software distribution model in which applications are run in the cloud and made available on demand to customers on a subscription basis.

Clavis was founded in December 2007 by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Garry Moroney and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Chris McCauley to develop innovative data quality management and data governance solutions for large enterprises. The two are successful technology entrepreneurs who previously founded Similarity Systems, which was acquired by Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) for US$55million in 2006.

Once incorrect data gets into an information system it becomes difficult and costly to rectify. In its report, "Data Quality and the Bottom Line: Achieving Business Success through a Commitment to High Quality Data", The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI) said that poor quality data cost US businesses more than $600 billion a year. Clavis leverages the power of the internet, SaaS and cloud computing to prevent data quality problems from occurring in the first place by applying quality controls at the points where data is first created or sourced.

Clavis Technology CEO Garry Moroney said: “In today’s highly interconnected world bad data entered into a web-form or into a frontline business application, such as a call centre system or a new product application, immediately spreads through a company’s information systems. The negative impact of the defective data and the cost of fixing it later – or not fixing it and leaving it to hamper important business processes – can be huge. The only solution is to implement controls to ensure that data is ‘right first time.’”

Clavis is the first independent software vendor with its sole focus on delivering data quality solutions as a SaaS offering. This enables more organisations to reap the significant benefits of good data quality with an easy-to-use, easily integrated, universally accessible solution.

Dermot Berkery, Partner at Delta Partners said: “The Clavis Technology management team has a clear vision for delivering SaaS data quality solutions. This funding round will help them to leverage their experience and deep industry knowledge, to secure their leadership position it the growing market for on demand data quality solutions.”

Fearghal O’Riordain, a Partner at Scottish Equity Partners, said: “Software as a Service is set to become the dominant distribution model for enterprise software. The benefits of easy configuration, accelerated time-to-results and scalable subscription-based pricing coupled with universal access make SaaS the ideal model for delivering critical business services such as data quality. We’re excited to be part of this market with the Clavis team.”

Clavis Technology is already working with customers in the US and Europe, and will use the proceeds of the funding round to drive new customer acquisition and expand its partner network. The company will also invest in product innovation to meet escalating demand for data quality and data governance in large organisations.