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Sid R. Bass Associates Leads Investment to Support the Campaign Against Email Overload In Group Communication
CircleUp, Inc. today announced that it has raised a $3 million Series A financing led by Sid R. Bass Associates, a $300 million venture capital fund focused on early and late stage technology investing. In conjunction with the financing, CircleUp added Perse Faily, general partner and Paul Pappajohn, venture partner at Sid R. Bass Associates to its board of directors. CircleUp is an early stage consumer Internet company focused on enhancing messaging to streamline communication within groups across multiple communications channels.
Recently featured as one of PC World's "25 Web Sites to Watch" for the web's next breakout hit, CircleUp is a social communications service for groups that turbocharges email and instant messaging communication for groups. Group leaders and administrators ask questions and gather information from consumer and business groups of any size and get back a single, organized result instead of a blizzard of emails and instant messages. CircleUp operates as a standalone service enhancing email and instant messaging and as an embedded service available within the sites and social networks of its partners and customers.
The majority of social communication still happens over email and IM and too often results in inefficient communication, inbox overload and the dreaded "reply to all." Launched in alpha at DEMO 07 in February, CircleUp (http://www.circleup.com/) was created to solve the painful issues that have emerged from group communication and the inefficiency stemming from use of these everyday tools. The new financing comes on the heels of the company's move to beta on May 1 and today's announcement of an embeddable social communications widget that enables users to communicate with their groups directly from their organization or event's Web site. The funds will be used to continue development, increase user adoption, and expand partnerships as the company moves toward commercial release later in 2007.
"CircleUp is addressing an enormous problem surrounding email and IM productivity in group communications," said Perse Faily, general partner, Sid R. Bass Associates. "The service delivers tremendous benefits to consumers and small business users alike as it is adopted across organizations. CircleUp has an experienced management team with a proven record of success in consumer technologies and they're very focused on solving this large problem. We look forward to continued progress from the company in this untapped market."
"We're excited to be working with the team at Sid R. Bass Associates as we go after tackling this huge, mainstream problem," said John Payne, CEO of CircleUp. "They understand our value proposition and hybrid business model well and with their support, experience and investment track record behind us, CircleUp is poised to tackle this challenge head on."
CircleUp was originally funded in the second quarter of 2006 with a seed investment provided by management and a group of industry veterans.
About CircleUp
CircleUp is a social communication service that turbo-charges email and instant messaging for information gathering, collaboration and decision making in online and offline groups and communities. It provides a fast, easy way to ask questions of any community using email and IM and get back a single, organized result instead of a blizzard of emails and instant messages. CircleUp users come from a variety of online and offline communities including youth sports, volunteers, schools, Scouts, clubs, church groups, political, alumni and professional organizations. The company is privately funded and based in Newport Beach, Calif. For more information on CircleUp, go to www.circleup.com.
About Sid R. Bass Associates
Sid R. Bass Associates is a venture capital and value added investor, providing capital and access to resources and industry contacts to high growth early-stage and late-stage companies. With $300 million in committed capital, the firm focuses its investments in the software, communications, wireless, security, storage, network infrastructure, media, and consumer and business services sectors. With a long term horizon, the firm partners with seasoned entrepreneurs to grow successful growth businesses through all phases of a company's development.
Web site: http://www.circleup.com/

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