 |
|
|
Will accelerate deployment of industry's first truck-to-door routing and directions service
Burlington, Mass. October 8, 2002
Maptuit Corporation today announced that Edison Venture Fund has led a syndicate making a $6M third round investment in Maptuit. Draper Fisher Jurvetson New England and others also participated. Maptuit, led by former Lotus CEO Jeffrey Papows, is a pioneer in the automated routing and scheduling of transport trucks.
Maptuit's premier service, called Maptuit® FleetNav™, provides on-demand truck-to-door directions to operators of heavy trucks. FleetNav has been licensed to dozens of fleets and over 30,000 trucks. Using a sophisticated model of the road network of North America, Maptuit is able to calculate efficient, easy to follow, truck-friendly routes to any destination. Trucking companies using the service report reduced non-revenue generating miles, a decrease in turn-related accidents, lower cell-phone costs, and driver manager time savings.
"I'm delighted to mark this milestone in Maptuit's history. Our products are meeting with good success in the market. Our strong reseller relationships are enabling us to scale our business quickly. This capital infusion will accelerate our path to profitability," said Jeffrey Papows, President and CEO of Maptuit. "We plan to bolster our customer-facing capabilities, build on our strong technology base and support our distribution partners," he continued.
"Maptuit represents a great investment. They have a well defined market opportunity, a unique and well differentiated product, and a strong management team," said Joe Allegra, Venture Partner, Edison Venture Fund. "We're delighted to add Maptuit to our portfolio and look forward to working with the team as they continue to expand," he continued.
"Maptuit delivers a fast return on investment to trucking companies today, and we see their proven, superior service expanding to serve broader markets in the future." said Scott Johnson, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson New England.
About Edison Venture Fund
In partnership with entrepreneurs, service providers and other financing sources, Edison contributes to building successful companies. Established in 1986, Edison Venture Fund provides private equity and value-added services to growing information technology businesses. Edison's 115 investments include expansion financings, management buyouts, and secondary stock purchases. Edison invests in expansion stage ($5 to 20 million revenue) companies located in the Mid-Atlantic region. Initial investments range from $3 to 5 million. Edison typically serves as a sole or lead investor.
Edison's staff includes 15 investment professionals based in three offices: Lawrenceville, NJ, Bala Cynwyd, PA, and McLean, VA. Industry specialties include application software, communication products/services and electronic products. Edison's successes include Best Software, Dendrite, Visual Networks, Longview Solutions and many information technology leaders, which have a combined market value exceeding $5 billion. Edison currently has $400 million under management and is actively making new investments. www.edisonventure.com
About Draper Fisher Jurvetson New England
Based in Cambridge, Mass., DFJ New England is an early-stage venture capital firm, providing expert counsel and financing to emerging companies that display the promise of significant growth and value creation. DFJ New England is the New England affiliate of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a top-tier Silicon Valley venture fund known for visionary early-stage investment. DFJ New England invests in information technology companies, with emphasis on enterprise software and the building block technologies for computing and communications, bringing to bear both the long experience of its principals and the extensive resources of the DFJ network to help portfolio companies make key decisions and secure customers, partners, executives, and later round financing. www.dfjne.com
About Maptuit Corporation
Founded in 1999, Maptuit Corporation provides trucking, tracking and traffic services for the transportation and consumer markets. With Maptuit's advanced web services and patented technology, companies benefit from the ability to easily look up addresses, create maps, perform proximity searches, generate optimized routes and provide directions. For more information please visit www.maptuit.com.
Media contact: Noreen Vincent, Maptuit Corporation, 781.685.4693
(Noreen.Vincent@maptuit.com)
|
|
|
|
