Data-Sharing Software Co. Sypherlink Closes On $3.5M Series A

Clancy Nolan, VentureWire

June 22, 2005 

Battelle Ventures LP led the round, which closed in early June, with participation from Reservoir Venture Partners and individual angel investors.

As a result of the funding, Battelle Ventures General Partner Mort Collins and Reservoir Managing Partner Curtis Crocker join President and Chief Executive James Paat, Chief Operating Officer William McCormick and individual investor Walter Doyle on Sypherlink's five-member board.

Formed in 2001, Sypherlink spent more than two years on development - funded internally by Paat and angel investors. Paat said the company began fund-raising seriously about four months ago and will use the money to bolster its sales and marketing efforts.

Sypherlink, which has 10 employees and plans to double its staff in the coming year, will sell its suite of software through direct sales, channel partners and resellers.

Released last year, Sypherlink's Harvester suite of data analysis, architecture and repository software is designed to improve the time and cost of designing, building and deploying data-sharing initiatives.

The software is designed to automate the discovery, analysis and mapping process of metadata - or data which describes how, when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data is formatted.

Applications for the products range from large-enterprise data center operations to homeland security.

"When you are stopped by your friendly policeman in the dark of night, there are several databases he'd like to access before he walks up to your car," said Battelle Ventures' Collins.

Sypherlink customers include the U.S. Department of Education, which used the company's software to run a data-mapping effort across 17 disparate databases.

Dublin, Ohio-based Sypherlink is also generating revenue through partners and resellers, including Allen Systems Group Inc., Teradata, Unisys Corp. and Battelle Memorial Institute - the sole limited partner in Battelle Venture Partners' $150 million fund.