Oblix Inc, the Mountain View, California-based software company that specializes in corporate services automation, has completed its second round of venture funding, bagging $10.6m. The round, which was led by Patricof & Co Ventures Inc, saw input from new investors Netscape Communications Corp and Novell Inc, as well as follow-on capital from original investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and The Java Fund. In connection with the deal, Paul Vais, managing director of Patricof, will also be joining the board at Oblix. Sandeep Johri, president and CEO of Oblix, says the money will be used to build up his company’s infrastructure, mainly its sales and engineering teams. The 45- person company hopes to have increased its staff to about 80 by the middle of next year. Oblix claims to provide the first web- based software that automates and manages corporate services by creating a digital persona for each employee – a complete digital profile that can be used to provision and track corporate resources and information with access available at the desktop level. It says that its corporate services automation (CSA) system reduces the administrative costs for providing and managing corporate services and resources for companies by at least $5m annually. The CSA package, which leverages Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) services, is seen as natural way of extending the capabilities of Netscape Directory Server and Novell Directory Services to the end user. Those two companies have been working with Oblix to integrate their technology with the CSA offering. New customers for Oblix include media company Knight-Ridder Inc and the State of New Jersey’s social services department – which Johri says is the company’s largest deal to date. That contract, won in conjunction with Netscape, was also the first joint sale for Oblix. Johri promises that more large accounts have been won, mostly in the area of financial services, but won’t give any names. Oblix claims to have recorded sales of between $3m and $3.5m this year and expects to see $10m in revenues for 1999. The company intends to expand to Europe but doesn’t anticipate opening an office there, planning instead to use resellers to gain entrance to the market, according to Johri. Besides Johri, the other members of Oblix’ board are: William Hearst III, partner with Kleiner Perkins; Todd Rulon-Miller, who most recently served as senior VP of worldwide sales, support and services at Netscape; Milo Medin, senior VP of engineering and chief technical officer for @Home Network Corp; and Duncan Davidson, EVP at InterTrust Technologies Corp.
