The London, UK-based software vendor has appointed Bob Potter, formerly of Iona Technologies, as its new CEO, replacing founder and CEO Andy Hayler, who will stay on as chief strategist.

The funding injection is being made by Atlas Venture and Benchmark Capital, and brings the company’s total funding to date to about $26m. In an interview with ComputerWire, Hayler said that the company hopes to reach break-even by the end of the year or early next year.

Meanwhile the incoming CEO, Bob Potter said that the company’s greatest push in coming months will be the expansion of its US sales operation. The company claims to have about 200 customers, but these are predominantly in the UK and the rest of Europe.

Kalido’s customer base is said to span the banking, retail, manufacturing, petroleum/energy, management consulting, and satellite communications sectors. It said around 70% of its customers are Forbes 500 enterprises, including Philips, Unilever, Cadbury Schweppes and Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

Kalido’s Dynamic Information Warehouse product is an application for the creation, management and global coordination of data warehouses, according to the company. It is said to provide consistent management information in complex multinational enterprises, as it assumes that the business model is always changing.

In a recent interview with ComputerWire, Ian Taylor, head of group procurement for Kalido customer HBOS, said the software saved the company millions when used to help consolidate multiple procurement data warehouses.

The solution was delivered in just three months, and the savings are in the millions. My team is now running more effective procurement processes and doing great deals. The data gives them the fundamental data which gives them a handle on what we’re spending, who we’re spending it with, the timing of deals and the pattern of demand, said Taylor.

The company is currently on version 7.1 of the Dynamic Information Warehouse, and Hayler said that an upgrade is due in coming months. The next major release though, version 8.0, will not be ready until well into 2004. Potter, meanwhile, said as well as expanding sales in the US, his plans involve building a repeatable sales model which can be rolled out to new geographies.

Source: Computerwire