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Linux-Based Messaging Firm Scalix Launches, Raises $13.2M Series A
By VentureWire Staff Reporters
6/4/2003
SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Scalix, a provider of Linux-based enterprise messaging software, announced its launch and a $13.2-million Series A round of funding.

Mayfield and New Enterprise Associates provided the funds.

Although Scalix is keeping relatively quiet about its product, Scalix founder and CEO Julie Farris said the company's enterprise messaging platform is meant to solve many of the problems associated with e-mail. "The company was founded based on a lot of time I spent talking to companies and CIOs," said Ms. Farris.

According to Ms. Farris, the Scalix product collapses the total cost of ownership around messaging by millions of dollars by combining carrier-grade infrastructure with rich messaging functionality.

Mayfield general partner and Scalix director Allen L. Morgan said the market for Scalix's technology is exploding as e-mail has become more integral to everyday life. "You often hear the refrain 'Our company runs on e-mail,'" said Mr. Morgan. "One of the consequences of that is CIOs have not spent a lot of time figuring out the cost of e-mail...but every time you turn around you need another server. As analysts and CIOs started looking at the problem, it turns out it's very expensive."

In addition to Ms. Farris and Mr. Morgan, Yogen Dalal of Mayfield and Stewart Alsop of New Enterprise Associates, have also joined the Sclalix board of directors.

Scalix acquired its core technology last year from an undisclosed company with a Fortune 500 customer base, said Ms. Farris. Scalix also brought on some key employees from the company.

"We're a jumpstart. We have a market-ready product, this is not a release 1.0," said Ms. Farris. "We look a lot more like a later-stage company in terms of our product."

Pilot customers are now using the product and Scalix plans to launch its product next quarter. The company will focus on Global 2000 companies. According to Ms. Farris, markets like financial services and technology that have embraced and are adopting Linux are especially good targets.

Ms. Farris founded Scalix in June 2002 during her tenure as an executive-in-residence at Mayfield. Prior to Scalix, Ms. Farris was a founding executive at onebox.com, a unified messaging service acquired by Openwave. She was also a member of the founding team of 2Bridge, an enterprise portal software firm, and Portola Systems, an Internet-based enterprise messaging system acquired by Netscape, now SunONE Mail. Earlier in her career, Ms. Farris was a marketing executive at IBM/Lotus, where she ran strategic marketing for the Lotus cc:Mail and Lotus Notes product lines.

Scalix, which has 15 employees plans to have a staff of 40 by the end of the year.

Last June the company received $1.2 million in funding from Mayfield, which was converted to additional Series A funding last month when the company raised the round. Scalix has raised $14.4 million to date.

http://www.scalix.com