Jive Software Receives $15 Million from Sequoia Capital

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jive Software, a developer of award-winning collaboration software, today announced it has received $15 million in funding from Sequoia Capital. Jive Software, which has been profitable since its 2001 inception, will use the funds for product development and to broaden sales and marketing efforts for its flagship products, Clearspace and Clearspace X.

“Working with Sequoia Capital gives us the resources to further innovate and address the substantial demand for user-friendly collaboration software that transforms productivity through the use of community tools like blogs, wiki documents, and discussions.”

“The collaboration market is on the verge of exploding and, according to industry analysts, is set to reach the $9 billion mark by 2009,” said Jim Goetz, Partner, Sequoia Capital. “Given this, our investment in Jive Software was an easy decision as they are the company positioned to lead based on the success of Clearspace, its marquee client list and its experienced management team.”

Driven by the rising demand for integrated behind-the-firewall enterprise collaboration software, Jive Software saw a 95 percent increase in quarter-over-quarter sales in the second quarter of 2007. Current Clearspace customers, many of which are Fortune 500 companies, include Nokia, Deloitte & Touche, Delta Airlines and Turner Networks.

“Jive Software is focused on becoming the leader in the enterprise collaboration space, and will achieve this by continuing to develop market-driven products that bring value to enterprises,” said Dave Hersh, Jive Software’s CEO. “Working with Sequoia Capital gives us the resources to further innovate and address the substantial demand for user-friendly collaboration software that transforms productivity through the use of community tools like blogs, wiki documents, and discussions.”

In addition to its recent sales momentum, Jive Software has also received considerable market validation in the past six months via industry awards and recognitions, including:

SoftwareCEO Software Innovation Award: Most Innovative General Business Software for Clearspace
Enterprise Open Source Magazine Reader's Choice Award: Best Open Source Product for Openfire
Portland Business Journal: Fastest-Growing Private 100 Companies
Portland Business Journal: Forty Under 40 (Dave Hersh)
Ernst & Young: Entrepreneur of the Year finalist (Dave Hersh)
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network: Entrepreneurship Awards finalist

Clearspace Delivers Clear Benefits

Clearspace is the first enterprise-class collaboration application to combine the latest content creation tools with community-driven intelligence. By presenting Web 2.0 communication tools in an intuitive and unified way, Clearspace motivates internal teams to post and read blogs, work together on wiki documents and engage in forum discussions. Collaboration and knowledge sharing are encouraged through the use of a ratings system, user rewards, tagging, workflow and RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds. Clearspace X is a version of Clearspace designed for collaboration with external audiences, such as customers, partners and suppliers.

About Jive Software

Jive Software develops award-winning collaboration software that is changing the way people work. Jive Software's products, including Clearspace and Clearspace X, facilitate open collaboration among employees, partners and customers by blending Enterprise 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, forums, chat, tagging, files and reputation systems into a single interface. Portland-based Jive Software counts more than 2,000 customers worldwide. For more information, visit Jive Software online at http://www.jivesoftware.com or Jive Software's developer communities at http://dev.jivesoftware.com and http://www.igniterealtime.org.

About Sequoia Capital

Since 1972, Sequoia Capital has provided early stage and growth stage venture capital for very smart founders and executives who have turned great ideas into sustainable companies of enduring value. As the "Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs," Sequoia Capital's Partners have worked with accomplished innovators and operators who built great franchises such as Agile Software, Apple Computer, Aruba Wireless Networks, Cisco Systems, Flextronics, Google, Informix, Isilon Systems, Linear Technology, LSI Logic, Microchip, NetScaler, NetScreen, Network Appliance, nVidia, Oracle, PayPal, Pixelworks, Yahoo!, YouTube, Aruba Networks and Netezza. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.