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eCommerce - Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Procuri - Profile

HQ: Atlanta, GA

Founded: 1999

Management: President, CEO & co-founder is Mark Morel. Prior to Procuri, Morel founded Just Care, which sells medical services for prisoners.

Investors: In March 2005, Procuri raised an additional $12.5M from Insight Venture Partners and Advent International. In 2003, the company raised $10M from Insight.

Business Model: Procuri sells ASP-based procurement management software. The field is sometimes called e-RFQ, e-sourcing or e-procurement. It has been a rocky road for Procuri with a fair share of law suits and plenty of marketplace turblence, but the company has done well to hang on to its customers. Procuri acquired Contract Management Solutions in March 2005, which doubled its customer base to 300. Procuri recently beat its chest that in 2004 it grew total bookings 130%.

Competitors: VerticalNet, Arena Solutions, Ariba, Perfect Commerce, CommerceOne.

Dirt: This was once THE hot market with companies like Ariba and CommerceOne holding down ungodly public market valuations. Fortunately for Procuri, even though the shakeout was severe, there was actually a market after all and the firm is in a good position. The company's marketing, however, is a parody of bad messaging: "The velocity of business is accelerating. You must make decisions faster and create increasing value for your organization. Now is the time to empower your team with Procuri as your strategic sourcing solutions partner."