Talend raises one million Euros with AGF Private Equity and completes its first-round financing
PARIS, France - June 16, 2006 - Talend, the leading open source-based ETL software tool, today announced that AGF Private Equity has joined its first-round financing with one million euros. AGF Private Equity, the leading European venture capital firm, has 1.5 billion euros under management. Following the announcement of its initial 2.1 million euros financing by Chausson Finance with Galileo Partners (see press release from May 29, 2006), the involvement of AGF Private Equity strengthens Talend’s position as a leading player in the world market for open source-based ETL solutions.
“This latest endorsement from a major international institutional investor reinforces our credibility in the market for ETL solutions and highlights the power of our company’s unique business model,” said Bertrand Diard, co-founder and CEO of Talend. “In terms of our technical level, our open source solution is in direct competition with proprietary offerings from some of the largest, most established players on the market today, such as Informatica or IBM Ascential. Given the growth and the market penetration of open source solutions such as MySQL and Jasper and given the quality of our solution, we are convinced that Talend will quickly become a major player in the world market for data integration.”
After 3 years of research and development, Talend’s solutions offer functionality, ergonomics and performance superior to traditionally costly and closed products available today, and often reserved for the largest, most financially solid enterprises. With an innovative architecture and distinctive economic model, Talend’s solutions respond to both ad-hoc needs, but above all, to more structured and strategic requirements for companies of all sizes.
Talend distributes its solutions in open source under GPL license. The complete version (available indefinitely with full functionality), will soon be available as a free download to the open source community. Talend also develops complementary components to facilitate integration of its tools in complex IT environments. A professional service and support offering will be available to partners and users.
AGF Private Equity was attracted to the unique market positioning and the experience of Talend’s founders: “Talend’s management team already has proven entrepreneurial success and an in-depth knowledge of the ETL market. This strength gives it full legitimacy to enter into this considerable market: each CIO, regardless of company size, is confronted with data integration issues and ever-growing budgets. The solutions from competitors in the proprietary world remain inaccessible and often too burdensome to implement, even for the largest organizations,” explained Jean-Francois Gallouin, venture partner at AGF Private Equity. “Talend’s “break ranks” positioning, which combines community spirit with a valid business model, seemed to respond perfectly to the demands of companies around the world. Talend respects the values of ‘open’ communities, by ‘professionalizing’ the introduction of open source into companies. AGF Private Equity is very interested in these new models that represent a sound alternative for organizations’ IT professionals,” added Fabrice Bonan, co-founder and managing director in charge of research and development at Talend.
The funds raised in this round of financing will be primarily dedicated to building Talend’s R&D team and to the development of an international distribution channel. “The support services will be consolidated around the solution and we will finish soon conclude distribution partnerships with internationally known organizations,” said Bertrand Diard. “The closing of this first round of financing comes on the heels of our having been given the FCPI label (to be part of a mutual fund comprised of innovative technology companies) and financing from the OSEO anvar (see press release from June 20, 2006). Our vision is further supported: the future of software embodies a more collaborative approach and a viral marketing approach to promotion. Companies will reap the benefits every day.”
About AGF Private Equity
Founded in 1997, AGF Private Equity is a subsidiary of the AGF insurance company and member of the Allianz Group. With €1.5 billion under management, AGF Private Equity acts both as a seasoned manager of European funds of funds and as one of the most active French investors in European technology venture capital. It currently holds positions in some 50 companies and regularly invests about 30 million euros annually in high-technology companies. With 275 million euros managed by the venture capital team, AGF Private Equity is an active partner in the growth of its portfolio companies. For more information, please visit: www.agfpe.com.
About Talend
Talend is the first provider of open source software tools for the ETL market. The company provides solutions that break with the traditional market by supplying software that is open, innovative and more powerful with a new business approach to the market. Talend’s software is distributed under open source license (GPL).
Press contact:
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