Congrats to all my former colleagues at CloudNine for the announcement this morning that they have closed a major funding round! The text of the press release is below.
HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CloudNine, a leading provider of eDiscovery automation software simplifying litigation, investigations, and audits today announced the closing of a major funding round led by Denver based, private equity firm, Crest Rock Partners (“Crest Rock”). Terms of the transaction were not announced. Steve Johnson and Jeff Carnes, partners and co-founders of Crest Rock will join the CloudNine Board of Directors.
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Houston, Texas, CloudNine provides customers with a choice of cloud-based or on-premise based eDiscovery automation products to dramatically reduce the overall costs of eDiscovery. Law firms, government agencies, legal service providers and corporations can save time and money by consolidating all of their data collection, processing, and review requirements by leveraging CloudNine’s self-service eDiscovery software.
The investment comes at a time when businesses across the world, both large and small, are experiencing the fastest rate of information technology change in history. The company will use this capital to accelerate its ambition to deliver new product offerings that both simplify and bring more value to the eDiscovery process. The investment will fund the company’s plan to increase its headcount by more than 50 percent over the next three years.
“Since CloudNine’s inception, we have been helping businesses navigate the intricacies of eDiscovery technology. Within the last decade, the rapid addition of new communication mediums has made identifying, collecting, and storing information in response to a request for production in a lawsuit or investigation more difficult than ever to capture and process. Corporations, law firms and other legal service providers need strong partners like CloudNine to automate the process in an easy and intuitive manner. This investment capital will enable us to increase our investment in additional product offerings and allow both new and existing customers to rely on CloudNine to manage eDiscovery complexity,” said Tony Caputo, CEO of CloudNine.
“CloudNine has a culture that is deeply rooted in serving its customers through its world class products and support,” commented Steve Johnson, co-founder and Partner at Crest Rock. “We have followed CloudNine’s growing momentum over the last several years and jumped at the chance to make a growth investment into the business. We are excited to partner with the CloudNine team and look forward to building upon their recent market momentum.”
About CloudNine
Every day, more than 1,000 corporations, law firms, government agencies, and legal service providers answer their most pressing eDiscovery questions using CloudNine applications. By offering CloudNine Collection Manager™, Data Wrangler™, Explore™, Review™, LAW™ and Concordance® as individual or comprehensive and integrated solutions, hosted and on-premise, CloudNine delivers market-leading flexibility and performance. For company information, visit http://www.cloudnine.com or email info@cloudnine.com.
A link to the press release is here. By my count, this makes the sixteenth merger, acquisition, and investment (M&A+I) event so far in the second quarter per Rob Robinson’s ComplexDiscovery site here (scroll past the Q1 2021 results for his running list). Clearly, investment in our industry shows no sign of slowing down.
So, what do you think? Are you surprised about the level of investment activity in eDiscovery companies? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.
Very gracious of you to share this “news,” especially since it’s pure puffery and lacks a scintilla of real information. Not surprised that you are always a gentleman, even when others might not be so courteous.
Thanks for the kind words, Craig. Wish I could say I’m ALWAYS a gentleman, but I try.
Let’s face it, most investment announcements are a bit of puffery, but investment into the industry is still newsworthy. Of course, I don’t cover them all (if I did, I’d need THREE posts a day to cover everything else too), but I did this time partially because there are a lot of former colleagues and friends still at C9 that I worked with that I respect highly and I’m genuinely happy for them.
The other reason I covered it is that I think this investment reflects how extensive investment is within this industry. It’s not just the biggest companies in the industry (e.g., Relativity, etc.) that are receiving investment, it’s smaller providers too. I think that’s interesting and I think it demonstrates that consolidation isn’t going to happen — at least not as quickly — as many people think. FWIW.