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Blist Secures $6.5 Million to Accelerate the Mass Adoption of Consumer Friendly Online Social Database Service
| Source: Blist
SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - February 20, 2008) - Blist, the company that is redefining the
database market, today announced a $6.5 million Series A investment from
Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures. Blist will use the
additional funding to accelerate the development and marketing of its new
online social database service that allies the simplicity of a spreadsheet
with the power of a fully featured relational database. In connection with
the Series A financing, Scott Darling, general partner at Frazier
Technology Ventures, and Ken Gullicksen, partner at Morgenthaler Ventures,
have been added to Blist's board of directors.
"There's a tremendous opportunity to help both consumers and small
businesses democratize the function of organizing data online, but it
requires going well beyond the capabilities of today's databases and
spreadsheets," said Scott Darling, general partner at Frazier Technology
Ventures. "Blist's meticulous vision and history of building world-class
products uniquely positions them to drive the evolution of the database
landscape for mainstream users."
Blist: Advancing the Database Market
Designed in the 1980s and without significant recent innovations,
traditional database products from companies like Oracle and IBM are costly
and complicated to use. Due to their inherent complexity, these products
typically require a database administrator, are not viable for
non-technical people, and are too expensive for small organizations. As a
result, consumers and small businesses have been forced to organize
information in non-database applications like Excel or in complicated
databases that require knowledge of SQL.
"Blist delivers the biggest advancement for consumers and small businesses
in the database market since Microsoft launched Access in the early '90s,"
said Gary Morgenthaler, partner at Morgenthaler Ventures and former founder
and CEO of Ingres Corporation and Illustra Information Technologies. "As
the first and only online social database service in the market, Blist is
poised to address the rising demand for user-friendly databases, and we are
excited to be an investor in this company."
Ken Gullicksen, partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, adds, "With a solid track
record of business plan execution, Blist makes a compelling investment
story."
Unlike traditional databases and spreadsheets, Blist provides everyday
mainstream users with a strikingly intuitive and flexible way to design
simple or sophisticated databases that meet their specific needs without
requiring users to have experience with programming or databases. Using
Blist, mainstream users can structure and catalogue all types of
information and then create communities around the data they share. Blist
is an ideal solution for creating anything from party or wedding guest
lists, fantasy football statistics, and personal finances to professional
information such as sales contacts, project milestones, campaign tracking,
status reports, and more.
"It's extremely satisfying to have two prestigious investment partners
believe in Blist's mission of building the world's easiest database and who
see the enormous opportunity to breathe new life and innovation into the
database market," said Kevin Merritt, CEO and founder of Blist.
Since launching at DEMO 08 on January 29, 2008, thousands of consumers have
requested an invitation to join Blist's private beta at www.blist.com. The
company has also received positive accolades from industry experts at
Techrunch, Webware/CNET, ZDNet, Mashable, PC World, and more.
About Blist
Blist is revolutionizing how consumers create, share, and utilize the
information that's important to them with the industry's first online
social database service for consumers and small businesses. Blist delivers
unprecedented ease of use through a new visual and intuitive user interface
that outshines others in the database market. Only Blist makes it easy for
anyone to create private or collaborative databases for anything ranging
from the personal to the professional. For more information, visit
www.blist.com.
About Morgenthaler Ventures
Founded in 1968, Morgenthaler is a leading, national venture capital and
buyout firm with offices in Menlo Park, CA (headquarters); Boston, MA;
Cleveland, OH; Boulder, CO; and Princeton, NJ; and has an investment focus
on information technology and life sciences. Morgenthaler's Internet and
software investments, past and present, include such industry-leading
companies as NexTag, imeem, Netli, Ingres Corporation, Illustra Information
Technologies, TimesTen, and Synopsys. Morgenthaler has a total of $2.5
billion under management. Its most recent fund, capitalized at $450
million, was raised in 2005. The firm (www.morgenthaler.com) has funded
approximately 300 companies over its 39-year history.
About Frazier Technology Ventures
Frazier Technology Ventures (FTV) is a Seattle-based, early-stage venture
capital firm focused on investments in wireless, internet service, and next
generation enterprise companies. The partnership helps entrepreneurs build
category defining companies by applying their executive operating
backgrounds from companies like C-Cube, EdMark, Intel, LSILogic, Metapath,
Microsoft, RealNetworks, and Visio. For more information, visit
www.fraziertechnology.com.
Blist and its respective logos are trademarks, registered trademarks, or
service marks of Blist. Other products and company names mentioned are the
trademarks of their respective owners.