Business Leadership

Acquia has announced that they have closed a $55 million equity financing round through the help of Centerview Capital Technology. Centerview Capital specializes in partnering with the management teams of midsize companies they see as "high potential" for growth. Centerview Capital Technology led the financing round, with support from existing investors including New Enterprise Associates and Split Rock Partners. This funding will help Acquia scale its global operations, sales and marketing as well as the development of its solutions for building, delivering, and optimizing digital experiences.

Jahia Solutions Group, the vendor behind the leading open source "Digital Industrialization" platform, announced today that Kevin Cochrane has joined Jahia’s Board. Cochrane is a former marketing executive for both Adobe and OpenText. As a board member, Cochrane is expected to provide strategic support to the company he recognizes as a major disruptor in the market.

Acquia has announced the appointment of Christopher Stone as senior vice president of products and development. Stone has more than 30 years of experience in software development and pioneering open source solutions for the enterprise. Stone will be responsible for engineering, DevOps, and product management of the Acquia Platform, helping lead the expansion of the company’s suite of SaaS solutions for building and managing integrated digital experiences.

One of my favorite local companies, Blend Interactive, recently made some news this past week. Blend Interactive has named Karla Santi as their Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Santi has been a partner at Blend Interactive since the company formed in 2005, where, to the public, she served as Creative Director and, behind the scenes, handled a good chunk of operational oversight.

Blend Interactive is a web design, development, and strategy firm located in Sioux Falls, SD. Blend Interactive specializes in custom design, strategy and development for web and mobile, and is responsible for the annual Now What? Conference.

AUSTIN, TEXAS – June 3, 2014 – Acquia, the digital business company, today strengthens its offerings for big data marketing and commerce, signing a definitive agreement to acquire Toronto-based TruCentric and its SaaS solution for real-time customer profiling and user engagement. TruCentric uses situational and historical data to drive deeper understanding of site visitors and provides insight in a way that marketers can make use of it.

Digital Business Optimization Drives Growth for America’s Fastest Growing Private Software Company

Creative Commons announced this week the appointment of Ryan Merkley to the position of chief executive officer. Ryan was recently chief operating officer of the Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit parent of the Mozilla Corporation and creator of the world’s most recognizable open-source software project and internet browser, Firefox. At the Mozilla Foundation, Ryan led development of open-source projects like Webmaker, Lightbeam, and Popcorn, and also kicked off the Foundation’s major online fundraising effort, resulting in over $1.8 million USD in individual donations from over 44,000 new donors.

Agility Inc.’s co-founder Jonathan Voigt, previously CTO, is taking over as CEO to provide leadership and a focused vision moving forward. Heading into 2014, the company is planning to expand its team to offer premium services and extended support to meet the growing needs of its customers and partners.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – February 28, 2012 – Axceler®,the leader in Microsoft SharePoint governance, administration and migration, today enhanced its security expertise with the appointment of veteran sales executive Michael X. Burns as Regional Vice President of Sales for Western North America.  Axceler is announcing the appointment at SPTechCon – the SharePoint Technology Conference being held in San Francisco this week – where Gold Sponsor Axceler is exhibiting (booth # 608) and participating in the speaking program.

I just completed one of the most exhausting days at work I've had since switching over from operations to IT. Everyone wanted a "minute of my time" which translates in the real world to 20 minutes (if I was lucky). The last thing I really wanted to do after work was touch a computer. Yet, I find myself too excited to not type about some great news.

What is the good news? Dries Buytaert, project leader for Drupal, is starting his first Drupal startup. The working name for the company is Acquia.

Thus, I'm starting a Drupal company whose current working name is 'Acquia'. Acquia's software products will include a number of Drupal distributions -- for community networks, digital media properties, corporate websites, and others. In addition to providing Drupal distributions, Acquia will build the Drupal-tuned analogue of the RedHat Network, over which we can deliver a wide variety of electronic services intended to be useful to people developing and operating Drupal websites. An example such service is an automated upgrade/update service, an uptime and performance monitoring / reporting service, a configuration management service, etc.

Does anyone else see the irony in Drupal's founder not beginning his first Drupal startup until seven years after releasing Drupal publicly? Think of all the developers, IT leaders, and companies that have prospered over the years from Drupal. In all that time, Dries has been very careful to not benefit more than others in the Drupal community. All in all, I think Dries has shown the highest respect for open source as well as loyalty to the Drupal community.

Already, some of the other CMS news related sites are wondering how the Drupal community will react to Dries' announcement. Comparisons are already being made to other open source CMS projects that have been torn between commercial and community interests. Take this CMS Watch post for instance: