May 08, 2007 All-In-One SaaS Co. BSG Alliance Closes Series A Round By Scott Denne Enterprise software-as-a-service company BSG Alliance Corp., brainchild of serial entrepreneur and venture investor Steve Papermaster, has closed a $17 million Series A round of financing. The round was co-led by Foundation Capital and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners with participation from Powershift Ventures, the venture firm founded by Papermaster, which makes investments using money from its general partners. BSG Alliance has raised $3 million in seed funding since 2006, when the company was founded. Through a combination of partnerships, strategic acquisitions and its own unique offerings, BSG Alliance will offer a buffet of software-as-a-service applications and information technology consulting to large enterprises, said Papermaster, the company's chairman and chief executive. Using part of this round of funding, the company expects to close its first acquisition by the end of the second quarter, and may make others over the next 18 months, Papermaster said. "The world of strategic consulting and writing software are coming closer and closer," said Warren Weiss, a general partner at Foundation Capital. "There hasn't been a strong period of innovation in the enterprise space since the mid-nineties and I strongly believe that we are on the verge of a major transformation" similar to the wide scale adoption of client-server architecture, he added. BSG Alliance will target large enterprises in the energy and utilities, financial services and government sectors, Papermaster said. One of the company's first clients is oil and gas exploration company Pioneer Natural Resources Co. Papermaster has an extensive resume as a both an entrepreneur and an investor. He has had successful exits with both BSG Corp., which sold for $440 million, and IT consulting firm Perficient Inc., taking it public in 1999. He also founded privately-held Rome Corp., a venture-backed enterprise software company. As an investor he helped found Vignette Corp. and TippingPoint Technologies Inc., both of which went public. TippingPoint was later acquired by 3Com Corp. The company currently employs 25 people but expects to increase its headcount to 100 by the end of the summer, due to both acquisitions and organic growth. Weiss and Mitchell Kertzman, a partner at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, will join the company's board.