PowerSteering Refuels with $3.5 Million

PowerSteering Software, a Cambridge, MA, startup specializing in programs that help companies manage large business and technology projects, said yesterday that it has raised $3.5 million in additional financing.

The company’s products, delivered using a subscription, software-as-a-service model, are focused on helping clients comply with the Six Sigma standards for process improvement first formulated at Motorola in the mid-1980s. PowerSteering claims that its software can help companies reduce administrative overhead and improve success rates for big projects such as implementing new IT systems. But lately, the company’s somewhat complex software products have faced increasing competition from newer, cheaper Web-based project management systems such as Basecamp from 37 Signals, whose products Xconomist Bill Taylor calls “shockingly easy to use.”

Privately-held PowerSteering was founded in 1998. (In an earlier incarnation as Cambridge Interactive, however, the company dates back to 1994.) It’s attracted a total of about $18 million in venture financing, according to Mass High Tech, which also reported that the company plans to use the cash infusion to beef up its sales staff and upgrade its own IT infrastructure.

The latest investment round was led by Toronto-based technology and life sciences finance company MMV Financial, with participation from existing investors Hudson Ventures and Advent International (which we happened to write about earlier today).