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Enterprise Software - Thursday, September 28, 2006

eSupport Deal Day In Israel: MOT Invests in NextNine; MSFT Buys

Two Israeli eSupport start-ups in the same line of business cut big deals today. NextNine closed its 3rd financing round led by Motorola. Meanwhile, Gteko Technologies was acquired by Microsoft. Both companies sell automatic software support.

Founded in 1998, NextNine has endured hard times, Globes reports. "In early 2003, it was simultaneously broke and had a high cash burn rate. The company’s board decided to restructure and greatly scale back the company, and it emerged from the crisis in 2004." Compared to Gteko, NextNine has more of a focus on the enterprise. It has developed down-loadable agents that communicate via the Internet with software that provides diagnostics on PCs.

Microsoft purchased Gteko Technologies for $120M. Gteko was founded in 1992 and until 2004 had not raised money from venture capital funds. Two years ago, it raised $13M from Pitango Venture Capital, Intel Digital Home, NEC Europe and private investors.

Gteko's Assisted Support Suite is a technician workbench that provides chat, mail and phone support to remote users. MSFT says it bought Gteko because it plans to offer more support services to consumers in coming years. Gteko's tools and knowledge modules help users to help themselves to add peripherals, upgrade software, and troubleshoot.

View - Gteko site
View - Nextnine site