Mission Research Raises Series B Financing

Though I don't normally pass on 'press release' type news, I'm making an exception today. As a common shareholder and advisor to Mission Research, I'm thrilled to disclose that the company has closed on its Series B financing, led by TBL Capital. Mission Research launched as a vendor of customer relationship management software for nonprofits (GiftWorks), and is now entering the small business market with SalesWorks. Congratulations to Charlie Crystle and team!

More from their PR guys:

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Mission Research, Maker of SalesWorks CRM & GiftWorks Fundraising Software Raises $2 Million Series B Venture Investment to Help Home Office, Small Office, Boomer Markets With Customer Management and Marketing Needs

Mission-Aligned Fund TBL Capital Invests Only in Socially Responsible Companies

LANCASTER, PA - March 24, 2008 - TBL Capital has invested $2 million in Mission Research, Inc, of Lancaster, PA, to fund the software company's expansion into the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) retail software market with SalesWorks, and continue its industry-leading growth in the nonprofit sector with GiftWorks Fundraising Software. GiftWorks is the fastest growing fundraising software for nonprofits, and is known for its affordability and unique, elegant user interface, donor segmenting, easy mail merge, and inherent social networking capability. Mission Research serves most nonprofits with software for $399 while companies like Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) target large enterprises for an average cost of $40,000.

"We're thrilled TBL has invested in our success," said Charlie Crystle, Co-founder & CEO of Mission Research. "TBL shares our values of social responsibility, and shares our goal of enabling small nonprofits and businesses to do more through feature-relevant, easier to use web-enabled desktop software. While other software companies serving nonprofits are selling off, stagnating, or losing money, we are growing at unprecedented rates. TBL is helping to smooth that path as we continue to democratize fundraising software for nonprofits."

SalesWorks Standard 2.0 launches in late April into the online retail channel, and will be priced at $99. "Business people have suffered with difficult, bloated contact management for too long, and the online apps just don't perform nearly as well as the desktop. So we take a simpler approach to user interface design, presenting only features that are relevant to each customer, rather than showing everything all at the same time, which makes it easy for people to understand and use the software, which is really quite powerful, despite its easy appearance."

SalesWorks also brings together the power of the desktop with the utility of the web in the company's Hybrid Web(TM) platform, which ships as part GiftWorks and SalesWorks. "It just makes sense to keep the data safe and secure in the desktop application, but to enable customers to send mass email, or map a list of customers, or show each contact's Facebook profile if they have one. In fact, our built-in social networking in GiftWorks integrates well with the Facebook platform in prototype tests, making GiftWorks the first fundraising software to integrate seamlessly with online social networking tools."

TBL (Triple Bottom Line) Capital invests in socially responsible companies that have social impact as well as profitability. "We invest in companies that have significant social impact, and Mission Research is having tremendous impact in the nonprofit sector, enabling thousands of small nonprofits to focus more of their resources on their missions and less on technology,” said Joe Marshall, Principal at TBL. "We're particularly inspired by the company's commitment to its local community. The co-founders combined donation of 20% of founding stock to a foundation, combined with their mission to enable nonprofits to build their capacity to do good, is a model we want to see succeed. So far, they're doing a great job, and we expect that to accelerate with this investment." TBL is led by Mark Finser, Board Chair of RSF Social Finance.

The company has grown in revenue and size by almost double in the past year, and is expected to double again through the investment. "We could have moved to the West Coast," said Crystle. "But this is home, and we're happy to be a part of Lancaster's community and have impact here. It's refreshing not to have to move merely to raise money."

About Mission Research

Mission Research is a socially responsible software company focused on serving the nonprofit and small business sectors with contact, customer, and donor management software that's affordably priced and easy to learn and use. Started in 2002, the company launched GiftWorks fundraising software in 2004 and SalesWorks in 2007. The Pennsylvania company was founded by former US Senate candidate Charlie Crystle, David Weaver, and Chris Walker, the original team behind Chili!Soft, sold to Cobalt Networks in 2000; ChiliSoft is now owned by Sun Microsystems [NASDAQ:JAVA]. Mission Research company is partners with Avery Dennison, Intuit [NASDAQ:INTU], and over 400 independent consultants. Mission Research can be reached at 1-717-431-0200, or info@missionresearch.com. 

About TBL Capital

TBL Capital has developed an intentional, patient capital venture fund platform that focuses on the needs of the entrepreneur with a balanced emphasis on people, planet and profits. With $50 million under management, the firm invests in entrepreneurs who are committed to building companies with strong triple bottom line returns. We provide growth capital to help companies succeed and support entrepreneurs as they manage the many opportunities and demands of a growing business. Launched in the fall of 2007, TBL Capital focuses on a targeted range of socially beneficial sectors: consumer products, service providers, software, clean technology, green building, health and wellness, and retail.

For more information please contact:

Charlie Crystle, CEO
Mission Research
717-368-2445
717-431-0200

Comments

[Charlie Crystle]

Thanks Christine!