eXo Accelerates U.S. Operations with $6 Million Series A Financing

Names former GM HP Middleware and JBoss VP of Strategy to chairman of new board

San Francisco, Calif. (Mar. 8, 2010) – eXo, provider of Java middleware for cloud services, today announced an infusion of $6 million in venture capital financing from Auriga Partners and XAnge Capital. With the new funds, eXo accelerates its U.S. operations, including ramping up marketing and sales.

In addition, eXo has created a new Board of Directors, naming Bob Bickel as Chairman. Bickel is a 25-year software industry veteran with experience building profitable, high growth enterprise software companies, including Bluestone Software (acquired by HP) and JBoss (acquired by Red Hat). He also served on the board and as an advisor to Hyperic and SpringSource respectively before their acquisition by VMware. Philippe Granger, partner at Auriga Partners, and Nicolas Rose, partner at XAnge Capital, will also be joining the new board on behalf of eXo’s new investors.

“At eXo, we see a huge opportunity to bring higher level services that can extend installed enterprise Java applications with consumer web features such as collaboration, social and content management,” said Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo. “We now have the capital and collective business guidance of our new board to execute on this opportunity and take eXo to the next stage of growth.”

With an existing footprint in French-speaking markets, eXo opened its first U.S. office last October following a partnership with Red Hat. The new financing will help fuel sales and marketing in North America, including a strong emphasis on forging partnerships with OEMs, ISVs, SIs, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers that want to enhance their offerings with eXo’s out-of-the-box services for Collaboration, Content Management and Social Computing.

Bickel commented: “Benjamin and his team have done a great job of getting eXo to this unique position in the market where it can be the unifying, modernizing framework and user experience platform that Java needs to remain relevant in today’s web-driven world. I look forward to working with the eXo team to enhance this position in the months and years ahead.”

Auriga Partners is an independent venture capital firm based on Paris with more than 180 million euros under management. The firm provides seed or early stage investment in information technologies and life sciences in Europe, North America and Israel.

Founded by the French public postal operator Group La Poste, XAnge Capital invests primarily in businesses whose activities are related to La Poste’s core businesses and present potential for synergies and partnerships (e.g., electronic exchanges and e-commerce, transaction security, CRM and direct marketing, document intelligence and logistics).

About eXo

eXo offers the next generation of Java middleware designed for the new era of cloud-based services. The eXo Platform makes Java websites and applications faster to build and easier to deploy, and offers modern features such as content, collaboration, social and knowledge on a services-based architecture. The company has established technology leadership and proven value by their large European installed base and strategic partnerships with Red Hat, Capgemini, Atos Origin and Bull. eXo maintains U.S. headquarters in San Francisco, Calif. with global headquarters in France and offices in Tunisia, Ukraine and Vietnam. For news and updates from eXo, follow @exoplatform on Twitter.

Brahim Jaouane

I am a Digital Marketing specialist specialized in SEO at eXo Platform. Passionate about new technologies and Digital Marketing. With 10 years' experience, I support companies in their digital communication strategies and implement the tools necessary for their success. My approach combines the use of different traffic acquisition levers and an optimization of the user experience to convert visitors into customers. After various digital experiences in communication agencies as well as in B2B company, I have a wide range of skills and I am able to manage the digital marketing strategy of small and medium-sized companies.