FastSpring, a Santa Barbara-based provider of e-commerce payment services for online vendors of desktop software and software-as-a-service (SaaS), has announced that it has received a significant equity investment from Pylon Capital, a Los Angeles-based investment firm.
This represents the first time since FastSpring was founded in 2005 that the company has accepted an outside investment. Terms of the agreement will remain undisclosed.
Going forward, all four FastSpring co-founders will continue with the company. CEO Dan Engel has been named senior vice president of marketing and will serve on the company’s Board of Directors, while Ken White, Ryan Dewell and Jason Foodman will continue with their prior roles. Pylon Capital managing partners Chris Lueck and Tom Tzakis will join FastSpring’s management team.
“We’re thrilled about this new partnership with Pylon Capital, which will introduce new financial capital, resources and talent to the FastSpring team,” Engel said. “Chris and Tom have a genuine appreciation for what makes our company unique, including our culture, our people, our technological innovation and our reputation for providing the industry’s best customer service. As a result of the relationship, we will be increasing our hiring efforts, investing further into sales, marketing, software development, customer support, and other key areas.”
Tzakis said: “Pylon Capital is excited to partner with a truly exceptional company like FastSpring, and we look forward to working with the existing management team to bolster the company’s offerings and to strengthen the company’s reputation as the industry leader in customer satisfaction.”
FastSpring has continued its significant growth in recent years, and last year company revenue surpassed $95 million. The company was ranked No. 53 in Inc. Magazine’s Inc 500 list of fastest-growing companies in the United States for 2011. Deloitte & Touche ranked FastSpring the No. 1 fastest-growing company in the Greater Los Angeles area and No. 13 in North America in its 2011 Technology Fast 500™ awards.
In addition to handling global payments and order management for software companies, FastSpring provides a suite of merchandising capabilities that enables clients to grow their revenue through maximization of customer order size and optimization of the order page conversion rate. Outsourcing to FastSpring enables software publishers to focus on growing their own business through sales efforts and product development while leaving the complexities of building and maintaining an e-commerce infrastructure and product merchandising system to FastSpring.
— Dan Engel is a co-founder and senior vice president of marketing for FastSpring.