Demandware competitor gets testy over IPO filing

Boston Business Journal by Kyle Alspach, VC Editor 

As Demandware sought to complete its initial public offering, the Burlington company on Tuesday was thanked — and then mildly disparaged — by e-commerce software competitor Venda of New York.

In a press release, Venda leveled the accusation that Demandware previously "did not clearly represent" the nature of the competition between the two companies in the company's S-1 filing with the SEC.

Demandware Re-files its S-1 With the SEC to Reflect Venda's SaaS and On Demand Credentials

 Demandware amends its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and its IPO roadshow presentation materials to accurately reflect Venda's position in the On Demand market.

NEW YORK -- Venda, Inc. thanks Demandware for amending its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and its IPO roadshow presentation materials to accurately reflect Venda's position in the On Demand market. Previously, Demandware did not clearly represent that Venda competes head to head with Demandware for business with enterprise class customers in On Demand, Software as a Service eCommerce solutions. This has now been changed as of yesterday afternoon (as at 13 March 2012).

Venda has more customers globally than Demandware, commenced trading three years before Demandware was founded, and provides many enterprise-class customers such as Tesco, TJX Companies and France Telecom with SaaS, On Demand e-commerce.

Sexy IPOs Versus SaaS-y IPOs

by Doug Pepper who is a General Partner at InterWest Partners where he invests in SaaS, mobile, consumer internet and digital media companies. He blogs at dougpepper.blogspot.com. 

 IPOs are hot again. Naturally, the press is focused on high-profile offerings like Facebook’s. But, I think there is a more important group of companies going public: Smaller, less sexy Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startups. Think of it as the Sexy IPOs versus the SaaS-y IPOs. They aren’t household names, but the most recent SaaS IPOs (Cornerstone, Jive, Brightcove and Bazaarvoice) are doing better in the public markets, on average, than the Sexy IPOs of LinkedIn, Groupon and Zynga. But it isn’t just their performance that matters — the recent IPOs of those cloud-based software companies (plus earlier ones from Successfactors, Netsuite, and Concur) are harbingers of several important trends:
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The good news for the VC industry is that we have significant inventory of companies that fit this profile ($50-100M revenue and rapid growth). For example, companies like Demandware, Box.net, Workday, Yammer, Badgeville, GetSatisfaction and Marketo should all reach critical mass in the next 12-24 months. And, there are many others.