Ketera Scores a Mezzanine Round

While I'm a bit late covering the news, it's worth pointing out to Spend Matters readers that Ketera was able to score a solid mezzanine round last week. According to Suppy and Demand Chain Executive, "The oversubscribed mezzanine round of funding was led by Duff, Ackerman and Goodrich (DAG) Ventures, and was joined by Teachers' Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP), one of the world's largest pension plans."

In my view, the fact Ketera was able to close so quickly on this round -- at least according to my sources -- suggests not only that the vendor is well positioned for 2007, but more important, that there's still significant investment interest in the Spend Management sector. Specifically, it's strong validation that E-Procurement is not dead -- far from it in fact. So unless this was a maverick funding round by a couple of renegade investors, it's certainly one of the most promising developments and validations for the future of core Spend Management technology to emerge in recent months.

- Jason Busch