Red Hat takes part in US$12.5m investment in Jaspersoft

10 Dec 2008

Linux software giant Red Hat has taken part in a strategic investment in an open source business intelligence (BI) software firm which has established its European headquarters in Dublin.

Jaspersoft recently reported more than 80,000 deployments worldwide and boasts the largest open source BI community with over 65,000 registered developers co-operating on 300-plus Jasper-related projects.

Siliconrepublic.com has learned that the company has established its EMEA headquarters at East Point Business Park in Dublin with an initial eight employees, with plans to increase headcount as the business grows.

It emerged today that Jaspersoft has secured US$12.5m in growth equity funding led by private equity firm Adams Street Partners.

Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source software, also participated in the round along with existing Jaspersoft investors.

San Francisco-headquartered Jaspersoft will use the investment to scale up its business operations worldwide.

“Even in this period of economic uncertainty, Jaspersoft has been experiencing unprecedented growth as the global market recognizes the power of our open source products and business model,” said Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft.

“This round of financing is both an endorsement of our leadership position and a platform for future growth. We’re thrilled that Adams Street Partners and Red Hat are now part of the Jaspersoft team.”

CIOs continue to rank business intelligence software at the top of their “must-have” lists year after year.

Jaspersoft expects the importance of BI to become even more critical in the current economic environment as managers look to BI software to help drive operational excellence and efficiency.

Just last month, research firm Gartner released the results of its Executive Programs Survey, and for the third year in a row, BI applications were ranked the top technology priority by 1,500 CIOs.

“Jaspersoft is a leader in the next generation of business intelligence software. We have great confidence in its product roadmap and management team,” said David Welsh, Adams Street Partners.

“Our investment today signals our commitment to companies like Jaspersoft that understand the evolving needs of business managers that must use IT solutions to drive better decisions and increase ROI through improved operations.”

With more than 7 million product downloads the company hosts the largest BI community in the world; its online collaboration forum, JasperForge, is home to more than 89,000 registered developers working on more than 320 Jasper-related projects. The company was also recently named to the InfoWorld 100 list and is a recipient of the Duke’s Choice Award.

“Jaspersoft is a great example of how the open source revolution has moved from software infrastructure into the application space,” said Jim Whitehurst, CEO at Red Hat.

“Together we are providing customers high value solutions. Most recently we’ve chosen to incorporate Jaspersoft into our Red Hat Network Satellite. We are pleased to reinforce our strategic relationship through this investment,” Whitehurst added.

By John Kennedy

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com