By Allan Maurer
CARY, NC—Marco Fregenal, recently president of Ultimus and a co-founder of HowStuffWorks.com, didn’t waste any time getting back into the software business after leaving Ultimus in March 2007. By May, Fregenal and his experienced tech startup team launched Carpio Solutions to sell SAP implementations, business intelligence software, and “dual-shoring” development services.
The company, recently funded by Palladium Equity Partners, includes Scott Loftin, founding CTO of HowStuff Works and a founder of a Raleigh ISP, as chief solutions officer, and Austin Batse, a senior exec at both Ultimus and SciQuest. Its board includes Tim Buckley, former COO of Red Hat, and Richard Holcomb, founder and initial CEO and Chair of HAHT Commerce.
The experienced management team is one reason Carpio got up and running so quickly. “Most of the management team has been with me ten years,” says Fregenal. “That lets us move as fast as we can possibly go.”
Fregenal, who self-funded the launch of Carpio, tells TechJournal South the company bought two Brazilian-based firms to acquire two of its three divisions. One division now sells SAP implementation services, the other sells the GesFin business intelligence software.
GesFin is a comprehensive, Web–based financial planning solution for the creation and development of any company strategy. GesFin allows financial executives the ability to develop a more efficient planning process within the company’s strategic framework.
Carpio partners with MicroStrategy and its GesFin Planning Solution for MicroStrategy delivers a complete consolidation for all business units within the organization offering real time views of consolidated results, projections and cash flow estimates.
Differentiators
Fregenal says one thing that differentiates Carpio’s business intelligence software from those of the “three horsemen,” IBM, Oracle, and SAS, is that “Our product was designed from the ground up by a CFO.”
That, he says, contrasts with the way software firms often work. “People ask for features and they put on a band aid,” says Fregenal. Other differentiating factors, he says, are that it “provides a great deal of flexibility. They can own the product. They don’t have to go to the IT department to get an analysis done. They have a great deal of control, so CFOs love it.”
A powerful rules engine allows users to run real time simulations that only take minutes to carry out, he adds. Additionally, he notes, “Implementing our product takes about 300 hours. The others take 900, 1,000 hours, sometimes nine months.”
He says Carpio is focused on the small to medium sized business market, primarily medium sized now. A medium sized business can get the software for $50,000 to $75,000, while larger ones would pay about $200,000 for the product and services.
He says even smaller companies are beginning to enter the enterprise resource planning marketplace. “Competition is fierce and the ability to track results in a shorter period is something even the small and medium sized businesses are focused on,” says Fregenal.
The company already has 35 customers for the product, ranging from biopharmas to crop science companies, among others “across the board.”
Dual-shoring advantages
Carpio also sells “dual-shoring” software development services. The advantages of dual shoring, says Fregenal, are substantial over simply off-shoring. “My team learned you can’t offshore 100 percent of any project,” he says.
The company dual shoring divisions are in Brazil and Panama, so they’re in the same time zone as U.S. companies, have the same holidays and the same work ethic, notes Fregenal. “Dual shoring removes all the communication risks from a customer and makes the process more streamlined.”
Because Fregenal and his team have worked with the off-shore developers for years, they communicate with them extremely well, he says. “It’s a hybrid model that offers savings compared to U.S. development and compares well with Asia.” At the same time, he says, it eliminates the need to keep people overnight and pay overtime for them to communicate with foreign developers.
Fregenal says Carpio plans to make another acquisition in the third or fourth quarter. The company has 150 employees and Fregenal says it may grow 50 percent this year and reach 300 employees next year, about 20 percent of them in the United States.
On the Web: www.carpio.com
© 2008, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.
