NextBio, provider of an innovative platform that enables life science researchers to search, discover, and share knowledge locked within public and proprietary data, today announced that it has closed a $8 million Series C round of financing led by Newbury Ventures, a previous investor, and including participation from prominent private investors.

The capital will be used to fund the company's continued growth in sales reach and channels, international expansion, and technology leadership. Since its launch, NextBio's research platform has been adopted for use by researchers at many of the world's top commercial and academic institutions, and the company has recently partnered with leading life science publisher Elsevier to make the power of NextBio available to subscribers of ScienceDirect. This partnership delivers unique, intelligent and insightful scientific content enabling researchers to accelerate scientific discoveries.

"NextBio is a strong innovative organization, poised for continued growth," said Bruce Bauer, Senior Managing Director, at Newbury Ventures. "NextBio's combination of ground-breaking technology, an exceptional team, and its unique and compelling value proposition creates the opportunity for it to be a continued leader in the life sciences information technology space."

"We are delighted by this vote of confidence from both our existing and new investors and share their enthusiasm for the company's strategy and execution," said Saeid Akhtari, NextBio Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer. "We are pleased to have these funds in place to finance the next phase of our growth."




About NextBio

NextBio is the provider of an innovative platform that enables life science researchers to search, discover, and share knowledge locked within public and proprietary data. NextBio's platform seamlessly combines powerful tools with unique correlated content to transform information into knowledge, providing the foundation for new scientific discoveries. NextBio helps organizations increase productivity and dramatically improve collaboration across therapeutic groups and geographic boundaries. NextBio is delivered as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution resulting in quick deployment and rapid return on investment.

Founded in 2004, NextBio has a rich history of innovation and growth and is recognized as a leader in life sciences knowledge discovery. The company is headquartered in Cupertino, California, employs over 50 people, and serves over a million researchers at the world's top commercial and academic institutions.

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Salesforce is now officially the first enterprise cloud computing company to hit $1 billion in annual revenues. The company announced its fourth quarter and year-end earnings. It’s quarterly revenues were up 34 percent to $290 million, bringing the total for the year to $1. 077 billion. Net income for the quarter was $13.7 million ($0.11 a share), and $43.4 million ($0.36 a share) for the year (which doesn’t sound like a lot compared to $1 billion in revenues, but it was more than double last year’s earnings). Its operating cash flow for the year was a quite healthy $230 million.

Salesforce ended the year with 55,400 corporate customers, and 1.5 million individual subscribers. And it has $883 million in the bank. Salesforce expects revenues to increase by about 30 percent this fiscal year to $1.3 billion.

Passing the $1 billion mark is a major milestone for both Salesforce and cloud computing in general. Salesforce is the first enterprise computing company to get to that size based solely on selling Web apps.

Here is the press release:

Salesforce.com delivered the following results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2009:

Revenue: Total Q4 revenue was $289.6 million, an increase of 34% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Subscription and support revenues were $266.1 million, an increase of 35% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Professional services and other revenues were $23.5 million, an increase of 15% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 2% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

For the full fiscal year 2009, the company reported revenue of approximately $1.077 billion, an increase of 44% from the prior year. Subscription and support revenues were $984.6 million for the year, an increase of 45%, while professional services revenue rose 35% to $92.2 million.

Earnings per Share: Q4 GAAP diluted earnings per share were approximately $0.11, including approximately $21.1 million in stock based compensation expense and approximately $2.9 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the Q4 GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the quarter.

For the full year, GAAP diluted earnings per share rose approximately 130% year-over-year to $0.35, including approximately $77.4 million in stock based compensation and approximately $8.0 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the year.

Customers and Paying Subscribers: Net paying customers rose approximately 3,600 during the quarter and approximately 14,400 during the year to finish at approximately 55,400. Net paying subscribers rose to greater than 1.5 million, an increase of approximately 400,000 from the prior fiscal year end.

Cash: Cash from operations for the fiscal fourth quarter was approximately $76 million, up from $17 million in the third quarter, and down 7% year-over-year. For the full year, operating cash flow totaled $230 million, an increase of 12% from the prior year. Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities finished the year at approximately $883 million, an increase of approximately $78 million from Q3 and approximately $213 million from the prior fiscal year end.

Deferred Revenue: Deferred revenue on the balance sheet as of January 31, 2009 was $594 million, an increase of 24% on a year-over-year basis and 27% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

As of February 25, 2009, salesforce.com is initiating guidance for its first quarter, fiscal year 2010. For its full fiscal year 2010, the company is updating its prior revenue guidance and initiating EPS guidance.

Q1 FY10: Revenue for the company’s first fiscal quarter is projected to be in the range of approximately $304 million to approximately $305 million. GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of approximately $0.10 to approximately $0.11. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $22 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is expected to be approximately $2.6 million. For purposes of the Q1 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 126 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $200,000.

Full Year FY10: The company today is updating the full year revenue guidance it provided on November 20, 2008, with revenue now expected to be approximately $1.30 billion to approximately $1.33 billion. The company is also initiating its earnings outlook for the full year, expecting GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of approximately $0.54 to approximately $0.55. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $91 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is currently expected to be approximately $9.3 million. For purposes of the full fiscal year 2010 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 128 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $1 million.

Marketo, an SaaS company focused on providing marketing automation software for B2B companies, has launched a bigger, better version of its sales and marketing optimization application. The software allows web-based marketing and sales teams collaborate on a single revenue cycle, turning web visitors and sales leads into customers using tools like email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, sales lead insight. The software is up and running for the client within an hour, saving clients time and money. What’s fascinating is that Marketo has partnered with Salesforce.com to provide seamless integration in the cloud of the two systems, helping enterprises work efficiently and easily between two cloud-based applications.

With over 140 customers and $1 million in revenue in less than a year in operation, including Thomson Reuters and Demandbase, Marketo is gaining traction in the web-based marketing cloud. Marketo closed a Series B round last summer from Storm Ventures and Tae Hea Nahm, bringing total investment to $13.5 million. Marketo was founded by executives from Epiphany, a marketing automation firm that sold to SSA Global for $300 million.

Marketo’s upgraded software includes over 200 new features (all customer requested) including improved Salesforce.com integration, real time alerts and advanced data quality. CEO Phil Fernandez think Marketo’s technology is “disruptive” in the web-based marketing spaces; calling the software “the first sophisticated marketing application in the cloud.” Fernandez said Marketo is trying to “help companies spread their brands across the web” efficiently and consistently. While Marketo has competitors, like vTrenz, Ferndandez said that no other similar company has seen such rapid growth in a small amount of time. Fernadez also said that Marketo is looking to expand its cloud integration partnerships later this year. It looks like cloud computing has spread to the marketing space.

[techcrunch]