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GotaCopy Gets Funds Approval Calgary, Alberta, February 21st, 2005 - The General Partner of SpringBank TechVentures Funds is pleased to announce it has closed the Funds' Investment Period with an investment in the Edmonton and Calgary based, GotaCopy.com Inc. (GotaCopy). SpringBank TechVentures co-led the investment along with Foundation Equity Corporation (an investment group based in St. Albert, Alberta) and a new management investor group. Concurrent with the closing of the funding, SpringBank TechVentures brought in a new management group to the transaction who became both investors and senior management within the Company. Joining the Company are David Edmonds and Randy Coates, formerly Founder, President and senior executive with Burntsand and Brad Flock, a former senior-executive with Netscape Canada. David Edmonds will assume the role of CEO. These three seasoned executives join the founder, James Gibbons and the VP Business Development John Givens to form the core management team. Each of the two VCs invested $470,000, while the management investor group filled out the round, resulting in a total investment of $1.4 million in the Series A financing. GotaCopy was founded by James Gibbins in 1999, and provides print tracking solutions that enable organizations to manage, bill, account for, reduce and recover the costs of printing, direct to a device or a central print facility. GotaCopy partners with IBM, Canon, Heidelberg, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Ricoh, and Xerox to deliver turnkey "Printelligence" solutions to Institutional and Enterprise customers. The market opportunity for print management services is significant due to the magnitude of dollars spent on printing. Gartner calculates that the cost of acquiring a printer is only 20% of the total cost involved. GotaCopy 's value proposition is premised on flexibly and cost-effectively managing an enterprise's printing operations across the entire organization. "The Printelligence Education solution is essentially transparent. The routing to the printer and the option to purchase additional print credits through an online transaction has been easy for students to operate and eminently successful for all stake holders." Northern Alberta Institute of TechnologyPrintelligence is essential for the business we do. We are in a very fast paced environment and changes can take place literally overnight. Printelligence enables us to make the changes we need in the timeframe we are given. Not only is it fast, but it is extremely easy to use and the support group is phenomenal. Rogers VideoEdmonds describes their value proposition as follows: "For education, health care and business enterprises who need to control their escalating printing costs, Gotacopy develops and sells print management solutions so they can account for, charge back and allocate printing costs and reduce those costs by 20% or more with enhanced printing service delivery. PPrinting is typically the second largest G&A expense for an organization. This is a rapidly growing market worldwide and entities such as the Gartner Group and others have targeted practices and offerings for the printing area. The management team sees a powerful ROI story and a lucrative business model to execute against. The GotaCopy team is expected to grow quite rapidly over the next 12 months" SShawn Abbott, Partner at SpringBank, says, "GotaCopy is an example of the kind of Alberta opportunity that really gets us excited. The company addresses a large and growing market opportunity and has established strong reference customers. The founders have incredible energy and understanding of how to create value in the relationships they are building. There is tremendous leverage for the investors bringing the experience and capital to catalyze this opportunity reaching its true potential". FFollowing our investment, SpringBank will continue to be actively involved with the Company, with Shawn Abbott representing SpringBank TechVentures as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Barry Poffenroth will serve as an Observer.
For more information, contact: SpringBank TechVentures G.P. Inc. |
