CXO Systems gets strategic investment from Cisco

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Friday, 17 September 2004, 19:30 IST
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PUNE: CXO Systems (India) Pvt Ltd has received strategic investments from Cisco System, Inc. amongst others in its second round of funding. Cisco along with Grand Banks Capitals, Kodiak Venture Partners, Ironside Ventures have invested US $ 7.5 million in CXO. CXO is a business intelligence solution provider delivering business dashboards applications with its India research and development centres at Pune and California, USA and headquartered in Massachusetts. CXO’s customers include Deutsche Bank, British American Tobacco, US and the US Department of Homeland Security. The company is promoted by Alok Batra and Malcom Frank. “This is not a run of the mill investment by Cisco and there are synergies in the business,” Abhay Patil, director (Indian operations), CXO India, said. Cisco is looking at building its products with built-in intelligence and raise the level. Patil said out of the US $ 7.5 million about 25% of the money is going to be spent on development and rest on marketing and sales. Out of the development budget, the Pune and California centres will share the funds equally. CXO had already received US $ 4.5 million in the first round of funding during January 2003 from Kodiak Ventuers and Grand Bank Capitals, a VC firm set up by SOFTBANK and Mobius Venture Capital, and Kodiak Ventures. “Bulk of the first round of financing, about 70%, was invested in the development. Now that our product has matured for mass deployment, we are looking at exponential growth in the number of customers in coming years.”