ACADEMIA

Panaya, a leading provider of SaaS (software as a service) for automating SAP upgrades, announced that is has secured $5 Million in Series B funding, led by Tamares with the participation of Benchmark Capital, which led the first investment round.

Panaya provides SaaS that enables SAP users to save up to 50% of their application lifecycle costs by automating maintenance projects such as SAP upgrades, consolidations, support packages, and enhancement packages. Determining the precise impact of such changes on an ERP system is an enormously complex task involving billions of calculations. Panaya is the first company that has harnessed cloud-computing to bring the power of a virtual supercomputer simulation to SAP customers, in a way that they can easily tap through the web.

Panaya automatically identifies the errors that will occur as a result of an upgrade, suggests corrections, creates test plans, and estimates budget for the project. With these detailed simulations, companies using SAP’s software can avoid much of the planning, development, and testing effort traditionally associated with such projects.

This round of funding enables Panaya to expand sales, marketing, and product development operations to meet the increasing demand and popularity of its easy to use, web-based application.

“Our customers and partners have validated our market position and strategy, and with this funding, we are well positioned to expand our leadership as the next generation of Application Lifecycle Management tools,” said Yossi Cohen, Panaya’s founder and CEO.

“We are impressed with Panaya’s ability to sustain aggressive sales growth during the past twelve months and add household names like Bosch, Sony and Volvo to its growing client roster,” said Meirav Har-Noy, Director of Investments and Strategy at Tamares Group. “This is especially true in these times of cost-cutting when companies are looking to reduce the total cost of ownership of their enterprise software.”

Benchmark Capital manages more than $2.3 billion in committed venture capital, and invests in technology-driven companies. The firm's portfolio includes such franchise companies as eBay (EBAY), Handspring (HAND), Juniper Networks (JNPR) and Red Hat Software (RHAT).

Tamares Group, headquartered in Lichtenstein, is a privately owned investment company with worldwide interests in the real estate, finance, media and leisure sectors. Tamares views its entry into the SAP enterprise software arena as a strategic move, through its investment in Panaya.