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The Situation

Blueroads Corporation was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. The company was financed by five venture firms that invested $37 million in the company in several rounds of financing.

Blueroads is a Software as a Service company (SaaS) that enables medium-sized and large corporations with complex indirect sales channels to maximize revenues. Blueroads’ technology strengthens the bond between vendors and their partners and enables them to work closely on every sales opportunity from first contact to close. The software was designed specifically to address the problems of channel management.

The company had a handful of customers and its service was deployed in 103 countries and supported 11 languages. Customers included firms such as Avaya, NetApp, Novell, Polycom and Xerox. 

Since this was a software as a service company, Blueroads had spent a significant amount of money developing its technology. The company was completing the development of its second generation platform and it had burned through much of its cash. The company had also undergone a change in management. Blueroads' primary problem was that the sales cycle was extremely long since it was selling to large enterprises. The cash reserves were getting thin. 

The Response

T.V. Metz & Co., LLC was retained to find a buyer and negotiate a transaction. There was a short time deadline given the company's cash situation. We ran a disciplined process and identified a large number of potential buyers. Software as a service was becoming a hot area, more companies were moving into this space, so it made sense to contact a relatively large number of buyers. 

The Solution

We worked quickly to move the transaction forward. We entered into serious discussions with six buyers and eventually generated three offers to acquire Blueroads. We negotiated the price and terms on a number of offers and counter offers, taking into consideration the time constraints and the buyers' ability to pay.

We completed a successful transaction with CSG Openline, based in Redmond, WA. CSG Openline builds and operates channel partner programs for technology companies including Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Eaton. Blueroads was pleased to close the transaction in a timely manner and it will continue to be a leader in channel management as part of CSG Openline.