FiREapps raises $8.75M to manage foreign currency risk

Venture Beat — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:17:55 -0800

FiREapps, which helps companies manage financial risk by providing up-to-date foreign currency data, has raised $8.75 million in a second round of funding.

Demand for the Scottsdale, Ariz. company’s software, which is delivered on-demand via online subscription, has been climbing in the last two quarters, says chief executive Wolfgang Koester. After all, he says, during the past few years there wasn’t a pressing need for this data among companies based in the United States — if they were getting paid in foreign currencies, they didn’t mind the weakening U.S. dollar. But with the current financial turmoil, knowing exactly how much money you have in exactly what currency, and knowing exactly what’s happening with each currency — rather than waiting a couple weeks after the end of the month before finding out — suddenly becomes much more important.

There are plenty of big-name players, like Oracle and SAP, offering products that tackle the issue from an “accounting” perspective, Koester says — in other words, providing companies with international finance data. But FiREapps focuses on a broader economic perspective, he says, adding that it isn’t serving tiny businesses, either. Koester says its customers’ annual revenues range from $100 million to several billion dollars per year.

“Our innovation is how to pull data out, how to put it into framework the treasurer can use, and how to manage exposures and risk,” says Andy Gage, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing.

Trilogy Partnership and returning backer Ignition Partners contributed $7.5 million. The rest of the financing came in the form of debt from Silicon Valley Bank. The company, which is a division of Rim-Tec, previously raised $3.5 million.

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FiREapps raises $8.75M to manage foreign currency risk