By Allan Maurer
FAIRFAX, VA – Razorsight has won a slew of fast-growth awards with its on demand software that automates back office functions such as payables and auditing. On the heels of its recent $9 million raise, the company plans to expand globally, says Charlie Thomas, CEO.
Founded in 2001, Razorsight has raised a total of $19 million in venture backing led by Sierra Ventures in two rounds.
The 170-employee company hires periodically, adding a staffer about once a month, says Thomas.
Founder Sundeep Sanghavi’s experience auditing large communications carriers for Arthur Anderson, then working with Cable and Wireless and TEOCO, led him to see the need to build automated tools and software for the Communications, Media and Entertainment space that includes telecommunications and data carriers.
For carriers, says Thomas, back office functions are the largest or second largest cost, $20 billion annually in North America. “It’s a very large cost that needs a lot of attention,” he notes.
Prior to the advent of Razorsight’s software, it required a lot of manual effort using spreadsheets and spot auditing, points out. “We build a highly automated on demand application that allows carriers to automate 100 percent of every dollar.”
A dashboard on top provides detailed visibility into carrier cost and revenue data, and ensures actionable insight that reduces operating costs, improves margins and enables better Sarbanes Oxley compliance, the company says.
Thomas says that Razorsight did consider taking its product into other verticals and signed IBM Global Finance. It decided a year and a half ago the CME market is so large, “And we had so much momentum there, that rather than hiring a whole other team for other verticals, it made the most sense to stay focused and grow by adding adjacent products and moving internationally.”
The company is beginning that international push now, he adds.
Razorsight has grown rapidly with revenues ramping up more than 600 percent the last five years, including several multi-million dollar deals with marquee communications service providers.
The company has significant contracts with leading companies in all aspects of the communications industry including LECs, RLECs, CLECs, CATV, VoIP, Data Service Providers and International Carriers. They include Comcast, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Global Crossing among others.
Thomas says the consolidation going on in the telecom industry has helped sell its product. “There is a lot of pressure in the industry to manage costs, and the consolidation faces them with multiple different billing, inventory and legacy systems. Bringing all of that into a single unified database with a single analytics capability is powerful and timely. It makes a solution like ours attractive.”
A plethora of new services and opportunities abound in the industry, VOIP, wireless growth, gaming, applications on mobile devices, streaming video, movie trailers, and more are all delivered through various carrier networks, Thomas says.
“All of that places an extraordinary burden on the back office and all of these trends are global.”
The company already has a presence in India and expects to put some people on the ground in Europe, but doesn’t plan on opening offices, says Thomas.
Its partners IBM and Accenture & others are a major part of its strategy through joint marketing activities. “They’re selling our solutions,” he says.
The changes in the industry that are driving adoption of Razorsight’s product are, if anything, accelerating, Thomas says.
In the not too distant future, he suggests, “Your wireless device will become your debit/credit card, the keeper of all of your transactions, and a lot of applications will be voice activated,” he says.
On the Web: www.razorsight.com
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