ForwardMetrics, an Encinitas, CA-based startup, says it has raised $1 million from individual investors to expand its Web-based platform for consultants and business leaders. The Web startup says the fresh capital brings its total funding to $1.75 million since the company was founded in late 2011.
Co-founders Ozzie DiVinere and Scott Warner started ForwardMetrics to provide cloud-based software that enables users to create strategic plans for their businesses—and to help them measure company performance on a project or long-range strategy. ForwardMetrics also hosts an online community that enables consultants and other experts to network and provide commentary on leadership, strategic growth, sales, employee engagement, and other business topics.
DiVinere previously worked at Altegris, a San Diego financial firm that specializes in commodities, derivatives, and other alternative investments.
Warner, who is ForwardMetrics’ chief strategic officer, was the founder and leader of Northborough, MA-based AccuSoft, an imaging software developer acquired by Florida’s Pegasus Imaging in 2008. Warner is the strategy guru and chief architect of ForwardMetrics’ core software products, which include FM Navigator, the strategic planning software, and Client Navigator, a program that helps consultants and business coaches attract and retain customers.
Instead of leaving client companies with a “fixed” strategic plan in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, ForwardMetrics says its cloud-based planning tool enables consultants to provide a more dynamic strategy that can be tracked after their consulting engagement has ended. A client company also can use the software-as-a-service system to continue to monitor how well different business segments are performing against the strategic plan.
“We license our software for consultants to use with their clients on strategic planning, business performance management, and more,” Andrew Hard, ForwardMetrics director of marketing, writes in an e-mail. Consultants’ client companies also pay licensing fees that provide access to the strategic planning software for a specified number of users, or “seats.”
“We are also reaching out to organizations as well, we would just sell them seats,” Hard writes. “Right now, we’re mainly reaching out to SVPs of strategic planning and SVPs of sales.”
Hard says almost all of the consultants and license holders also provide expert commentary for ForwardMetrics’ online community, which already consists of more than 1,000 business consultants and coaches. “We also have many other members of the community who aren’t yet license holders and other business leaders and service providers in there as well,” Hard says.
The company plans to use the additional funding to expand staff support for its growing customer base.
