Beyond the Rack gears up for next phase of growth with $36 million equity round

Beyond the Rack today announced that it recently closed a $36.6 million USD investment round led by Silicon Valley-based Panorama Capital with additional investment from Export Development Canada, Tandem Expansion Fund, Rho Canada, and iNovia Capital. Current investors Highland Capital Partners and BDC Venture Capital also participated in the round.

Proceeds from the current round of funding will be used to further accelerate growth and enhance logistics and distribution to accommodate the rapid expansion of the Company’s active customer base.

Beyond the Rack was recently ranked as North America’s fastest-growing online retailer by Internet Retailer’s Magazine. The company has attracted over 5 million consumer members and over 3,000 brand partners to its online flash-sale marketplace.

“This significant funding will allow us to continue to maintain our leadership position in both Canada and the U.S.” said Yona Shtern, CEO of Beyond the Rack. “We are extremely appreciative of the continued support from our existing shareholders and are thrilled to add such highly respected investors to our team,” added Mr. Shtern.

As the category leader in Canada “Beyond the Rack is successfully executing its strategy of rapid expansion with an emphasis on profitable growth, in sharp contrast to some of its competitors. In targeting a much broader segment of consumers, we see an opportunity to build a very substantial company and are delighted to join forces to further expand its thriving business” said Shahan Soghikian, Managing Director at Panorama Capital who will join Beyond the Rack’s Board of Directors.

“Watching Beyond the Rack transform from a small start-up into North America’s market leader over such a short period of time has been extremely gratifying,” added Dan Nova, general partner at Highland Capital. “We are excited to continue to play an active role in the company’s further development”.

About Beyond the Rack

Beyond the Rack, North America’s premier online shopping club, offers its members the most sought-after designer brand apparel, accessories, beauty, consumer electronics, and home décor products at up to 70% off retail. Ranked by Internet Retailer as North America’s fastest-growing e-tailer in 2011, Beyond the Rack sells its products in the context of limited-time, limited-quantity sales events. Members can expect up to 15 new events each day, starting at 11AM ET. The privately held company has offices in Montreal, New York, Las Vegas & Toronto with a staff of 250 full-time employees. Beyond the Rack proudly serves more than 5 million members across North America and works with over 3,000 consumer brands.

About Panorama Capital Partners

Panorama Capital seeks investment opportunities in life sciences and technology companies led by dynamic, experienced entrepreneurs. Leveraging two decades of investment and operating experience, the team invests in mid to later stage financings primarily in the consumer and mobile segments in technology, and biopharmaceuticals in life sciences. Panorama partners with its portfolio management teams to bring its experience and extensive network to bear on solving strategic challenges, building teams and accelerating growth. The partners are proud to have invested in and worked with numerous successful companies including Digital Island, ONI Systems, Myogen, Petco Animal Supplies, Kinkos, Eyetech, Piramed, Seattle Genetics, Corus Pharma, Federated Media, 1-800-Flowers.com, and Portal Player, among others.

About Rho Canada

Rho Canada, based in Montreal, is dedicated to backing leading, early-stage companies across Canada. Formed in 2006, Rho Canada is affiliated with Rho Ventures, based in New York and Palo Alto, and leverages off Rho Ventures’ 30+ years of experience in investing in venture-stage companies. Since 1981, Rho Ventures has been investing in leading edge, high growth companies that redefine the status quo. The firm has a deep history of supporting companies at multiple stages of growth spanning early stage investments to later stage expansion and growth equity transactions. Rho has over $2 billion under management.

About Tandem Expansion Fund

Tandem Expansion is a private growth capital fund with over $300 million in committed capital actively seeking to invest in small and mid-sized Canadian companies in a variety of technology-based sectors. Tandem acts as a catalyst for growth and expansion by making significant investments in established companies with high growth potential and strong management teams.

About Export Development Canada

EDC is Canada’s export credit agency, offering innovative commercial solutions to help Canadian exporters and investors expand their international business. EDC’s knowledge and partnerships are used by more than 8,200 Canadian companies and their global customers in up to 200 markets worldwide each year. EDC is financially self-sustaining and a recognized leader in financial reporting and economic analysis.

About Highland Capital Partners LLC

For the past twenty years, Highland Capital Partners has taken a sector-focused approach to investing in exceptional seed through later stage growth companies in the healthcare, internet & digital media and technology markets. Highland actively seeks to provide the right mix of strategic guidance, hands-on leadership and deep industry domain expertise for helping entrepreneurs and their teams become market-leading organizations. With over $3 billion of committed capital and offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, Shanghai and Geneva, Highland has invested in and worked to create such firms as Ask Jeeves, Avid Technology, CheckFree, Conor Medsystems, Continental Cable, Generation Health, lululemon athletica, Lycos, MapQuest, Ocular Networks, Odyssey Healthcare, Quigo, Starent Networks, Sybase, Telica and VistaPrint.

About BDC Venture Capital

As Canada’s business development bank, BDC puts entrepreneurs first. BDC’s Venture Capital division (BDC VC) is one of the country’s most active venture capital investors and is involved at every stage of its investee companies’ development cycles, from seed through expansion. BDC VC focuses on technology-based businesses with high growth potential that are positioned to become dominant players in their respective markets.

About iNovia

iNovia partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build successful companies in high growth sectors. The team is comprised of entrepreneurs and sector experts focused on Mobile, Internet and Digital Media. iNovia has $165M under management across two seed and early stage funds.

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Press contact:
Lori Krebs
Beyond the Rack
514-359-3580
lori@beyondtherack.com

Galaxie lance la première application canadienne de musique sans publicité pour appareils mobiles

Stingray Digital, le chef de la musique interactive au Canada, a lancé aujourd’hui Galaxie Mobile, la première application canadienne sans publicité pour appareils mobiles.

Galaxie Mobile offre le service populaire de Galaxie – déjà disponible en ligne et dans plus de 10 millions de foyers au Canada via le câble, le satellite et la télévision par IP – sur une troisième plateforme, les appareils mobiles.

Le nouveau service offre les 45 chaines de Galaxie sans publicité ni interruption et ajoute des outils interactifs. Les usagers peuvent passer d’une chanson à l’autre pour entendre la musique qu’ils aiment et ils peuvent acheter les chansons directement du magasin iTunes à travers l’application Galaxie Mobile.

Un nouveau sondage indépendant au niveau national géré par Vision Critical a trouvé que les chaines de Galaxie ont été écoutées par plus d’un tiers des Canadiens (35 %) pendant le mois passé et par plus d’un Canadien sur cinq (21%) durant la dernière semaine. Plus de la moitié des Canadiens (58 %) ont écouté Galaxie dans le passé, rapporte Vision Critical.

« Les Canadiens pourront maintenant profiter du service de musique Galaxie qu’ils aiment tant écouter à la maison, même lorsqu’ils seront sur la route. » dit Eric Boyko, Président de Stingray Digital. « Galaxie Mobile, va non seulement élargir l’expérience musicale pour les millions d’usagers courants, mais aussi ouvrir les portes à un tout nouvel auditoire. »

Eric Boyko ajoute: « L’addition du service mobile à la gamme de produits Galaxie démontre l’effort de Stingray pour offrir plus de choix multiplateformes aux consommateurs et l’importance accordée au soutien de la musique canadienne sur nos 45 chaînes. »

L’application est maintenant disponible pour iPhone, iPad, iPod touch et pour les appareils Android. Elle peut être téléchargée via l’Apple Store à l’adresse suivante: www.galaxie.ca/galaxiemobile et via le Android Market à l’adresse suivante : www.galaxie.ca/android. L’application sera bientôt aussi disponible aux États-Unis et sur les appareils Blackberry.

« Nous accueillons favorablement le lancement de Galaxie Mobile dans le marché grandissant de la musique numérique au Canada avec cette entente innovatrice représentant près de 1500 détenteurs de droits parmi AVLA (Audio-Video Licensing Agency) et SOPROQ (Société de gestion collective des droits des producteurs de phonogrammes et de vidéogrammes du Québec), » mentionne Victoria Shepherd, Directrice exécutive d’AVLA.

« En offrant un service complet d’émission de licences avec des multinationales et des labels indépendants, nous avons créé un modèle accessible pour les autres services semi-interactifs qui désirent venir au Canada, » rajoute Shepherd.

« Stingray est un excellent partenaire pour nos membres car nous travaillons fort pour créer une nouvelle formule pour l’émission de licences de la musique au Canada. » dit Graham Henderson, Président de Music Canada. « Notre priorité est d’offrir ces services ici le plus rapidement possible. Nous comprenons que le système règlementaire peut être difficile à suivre pour la plupart des distributeurs de musique numérique, mais nos membres travaillent pour trouver des moyens plus innovateurs. Représentant plus de 1000 labels, AVLA offre le lien parfait. »

Lyette Bouchard, Directrice générale de la SOPROQ remarque, « Le lancement d’un service canadien comme celui-ci est une étape importante dans le développement d’une offre musicale numérique légale, attrayante et compétitive. Ce type de services contribuera assurément à éloigner les amateurs de musique des pratiques du piratage. »

Le téléchargement de l’application Galaxie Mobile est offert gratuitement. L’abonnement est aussi gratuit pour une période d’essai de sept jours, puis 4.99$ par mois. Un forfait de trois mois pour 9.99$ et un abonnement annuel pour 39.99$ sont aussi disponibles.

Le nouveau service offre un son numérique de haute qualité et une vaste gamme de chansons licenciées provenant des labels les plus importants ainsi que des labels indépendants. L’offre musicale est en anglais et en français dans une variété de genres musicaux, incluant pop, rock, classique, jazz, country et plus.

À propos de Stingray Digital Media Group

Stingray Digital est le chef de la distribution des services de musique multiplateforme dans le monde, avec plus de 60 millions abonnés dans plus de 45 pays. Nos propriétés incluent :

• The KARAOKE Channel, la plus importante bibliothèque de chansons karaoké disponible sur la télévision et sur Internet (www.thekaraokechannel.com)
• Galaxie, le meilleur service de musique numérique pour la télévision au Canada et aux États-Unis (www.galaxie.ca)
• Music Choice Europe, un service de musique numérique pour la télévision diffusé auprès de 10 millions de foyers en Europe et en Afrique (www.musicchoiceinternational.com)
• Stingray360, un chef de file dans les solutions de marketing sensoriel pour les entreprises (www.stingray360.com)
• Stingray Music, gestion des droits musicaux pour le cinéma, la télévision, la publicité et autres (www.stingray-music.com)
• Concert TV, un service VSD distribué dans plus de 30 millions foyers aux États-Unis et bientôt au Canada (www.concerttv.com)

Stingray Digital est financièrement appuyé par Telesystem et Novacap. Basée à Montréal, la compagnie Stingray Digital compte plus de 135 employés et d’autres bureaux à travers le Canada, Charlotte, Caroline du Nord et Budapest. Pour plus de renseignements, visitez www.stingraydigital.com.

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Renseignements :
Gary Pelletier, Vice-président, Marketing
Stingray Digital
gpelletier@stingraydigital.com
514-664-1244

iPerceptions’ 4Q Suite delivers Voice of Customer Analytics

iPerceptions Inc. (TSX.V:IPE), a leading provider of web-focused Voice of Customer (VoC) analytics based on actual visitor feedback, today announced the general availability of 4Q Suite. Now companies of all sizes can combine their VoC and Google Analytics (GA) data at the session level and receive automatic alerts identifying significant changes in the data. 4Q Suite customers receive scheduled emails of online visitors’ positive and negative open-ended comments, Facebook and Twitter links and global industry comparisons from over 8,500 websites across 35 industry verticals.

Companies now have the choice of using the free 4Q survey, which was developed in collaboration with Avinash Kaushik, a noted web analytics author and blogger, or purchasing 4Q Basic, 4Q Plus or 4Q Premium. 4Q Suite is a SaaS solution designed for price-conscious and time-starved marketers who recognize the critical insights that exist in analyzing customer feedback. With tiered pricing, companies can start to improve their website, their brand, and their business with 4Q Basic for just $19 a month. As business needs grow, companies can gain additional VoC analytics value with 4Q Plus and 4Q Premium.

“iPerceptions has done for VoC what Google has done for clickstream analytics,” says Stephane Hamel, a thought leader in the field of online analytics. “iPerceptions has made it easy to produce, implement and manage surveys, creating a much more powerful way to do voice of customer analytics. The new analysis features are amazingly intuitive and powerful and attention to details, such as the automated weekly status email, will make it even easier to close the loop on voice of customer.”

“Using iPerceptions’ 4Q Suite for analysis gave us insights we would not have been able to get any other way,” says Alan Etkin, Project and Web Analytics Manager at British Columbia Institute of Technology. “Particularly helpful is a graphic chart showing relative performance of purpose of visits. At a glance, we can identify which areas are performing below average. Going forward this provides a simple means of prioritizing efforts and monitoring our progress on the improvements.”

“The new 4Q Suite analysis tools will help us to communicate user experience throughout www.rasmussen.edu in a structured and efficient manner, creating a positive experience for our students,” says Josh Braaten, online marketing manager at Rasmussen College. “From scheduled reports based on roles within the organization to a robust integration with Google Analytics, 4Q Suite is taking cost-effective user experience measurement to the next level.”

While the overall premise around asking the four most important survey questions remains the same as 4Q Free, 4Q Suite offers the following innovations:

• Google Analytics Integration – Allows companies to analyze individual customer experiences, including their open-ended feedback, based on the combination of VoC and GA data. This multi-perspective, session-level analysis provides a broader and more accurate view of the customer experience, which often unveils surprising insights and requires a different company response.
• Industry Benchmarking – Augments customer feedback with global industry comparisons. The 4Q database contains representative data from 35 of the top industries worldwide. Industry Benchmarking lets clients gauge their relative position vis-à-vis their competitors and justify their improvements.
• Automatic Alerts – Triggers an Automatic Alert, based on advanced algorithms, identifying significant in the data. It is the only solution that generates alerts based on a combination of VoC and GA data. Automatic Alerts eliminate the time and associated costs of searching for changes and calculating the significance of changes.
• Social Media Links – Embedded Twitter and Facebook links help build community, awareness and brand recognition.
• Customer Relationship Management – Ads and coupons on the survey thank-you page help increase sales opportunities. Companies can collect email addresses and reply to individuals or groups.
• Invitation Customization – Lets clients customize the look and feel of their survey invitation, include their company logo, and present the invitation on their site in a layered or more discrete format. Clients can also customize the survey welcome page and thank-you page.

About 4Q

Launched in March 2008, 4Q helps companies understand why and how people interact with their websites by asking the four most important survey questions:

• What are my visitors at my website to do? Are they completing what they set out to do? If not, why not?
• How satisfied are my visitors?

Companies can also choose to include additional survey questions on path to site and visit frequency, gaining the ability to segment responses by visitor group and type. 4Q requires a single line of code and can be installed in minutes on any website. All surveys are permission-based and employ a two-stage invitation process that minimizes session interruptions. A real-time results dashboard is available 24/7 through a secure online portal so that 4Q clients can use their findings to make website changes that engage, retain, and convert more visitors. For more information, please visit www.4Qsurvey.com.

About iPerceptions

iPerceptions is a leading web-focused Voice of Customer analytics provider. Its webValidator Continuous Listening solution, 4Q Suite solution, Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP) and proprietary iPerceptions Satisfaction Index (iPSI) turn millions of data points into easy-to-understand strategic and tactical decision support for website marketers. iPerceptions’ clients include such well-known brands as InterContinental Hotels, Mazda, Dell, Harvard Business Review, and Monster Worldwide. For more information, please visit www.iperceptions.com.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

All trademarks and registered trademarks in this document are the properties of their respective owners.

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Media contact:
Barbara Reichert
Reichert Communications, LLC
415-248-0230 x7012
barbara@reichertcom.com

Nexterra closes $15 million financing with Tandem Expansion and Arc Financial

Nexterra Systems Corp. today announced that it has secured $15 million in equity financing from Tandem Expansion Fund and ARC Financial. Proceeds will be used to accelerate the growth of Nexterra’s business.

“We believe that the market for small-scale biomass heat and power systems is poised to grow rapidly in the next few years to meet rising demand for on-site renewables, energy security and greenhouse gas reduction,” said Sandy Scott on behalf of Tandem Expansion. “When we looked at the biomass energy market, Nexterra clearly stood out due to its innovative and commercially proven technology, strong market position and seasoned management team. Recent wins in the higher education and health care markets, position the company for rapid expansion.”

Utilizing Nexterra’s proprietary biomass gasification technology, Nexterra’s biomass energy systems allow universities, municipalities, hospitals and industrial facilities to reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions by switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy generated on-site using biomass. Nexterra systems are ideally suited to urban environments due to their ultra-low emissions, fuel flexibility, reliability and low lifecycle costs compared to traditional biomass combustion equipment.

Nexterra has been selected by customers that include the US Department of Energy, Johnson Controls, University of Montana, Kruger Products, Dockside Green and University of British Columbia. In aggregate, Nexterra systems are capable of displacing over 2,000,000 MMBtu per year of fossil fuels (equivalent to heating 770,000 North American homes) and reducing greenhouse gases by over 100,000 tones per year (equivalent to taking 25,000 cars off the road).

“We are delighted to participate in this financing,” said Brian Boulanger, Senior Vice President and Director of ARC Financial. “This is ARC’s fourth investment in Nexterra and we continue to be very excited about the progress the company has achieved, as well as its growth prospects. Nexterra has clearly emerged as a dominant force in the biomass heat and power market.”

Colin Hansen, British Columbia’s Minister of Finance said, “Tandem and ARC’s $15 million investment in Nexterra is an excellent example of continued investor interest in innovative B.C. companies, particularly in newer industries such as clean energy. This shows the confidence investors have in B.C.’s economy, our strong business climate and our leadership in the clean technology sector.”

“With the company on track for a record year in 2011 for sales and revenue growth, Nexterra is continuing to build on its leadership position in the biomass energy market,” said Nexterra CEO, Jonathan Rhone. “This financing ensures that we have the resources required to meet market demand, continue to expand and enhance our product portfolio and maintain momentum in all aspects of the business.”

About Tandem Expansion

Tandem is a growth equity investor that makes significant minority investments in Canadian businesses. Tandem is committed to helping Canadian technology companies and their management team to reach their full potential. Beyond capital, Tandem helps to make things happen by contributing its experience in building companies, its relationships and its proven ability to create value. Tandem values integrity, trust, openness and long-term relationships. For more information regarding Tandem, and to contact the Fund regarding investment opportunities: www.tandemexpansion.com.

About ARC Financial

The six ARC Energy Funds represent $2.7 billion of capital and are focused exclusively on investment in the energy sector. Areas of investment encompass the Canadian and global energy business including conventional exploration and production, oilfield services, infrastructure, power generation and emerging new sources of supply such as oil sands, unconventional gas and renewables. For more information: www.arcfinancial.com.

About Nexterra

Nexterra Systems is a leading supplier of biomass gasification solutions that generate renewable heat and power for institutional and industrial customers. Nexterra has supplied commercial gasification systems for projects at the US Department of Energy, University of South Carolina, Dockside Green, Kruger Products, the University of Northern BC and Tolko Industries. Nexterra has strategic relationships with General Electric, Johnson Controls and Andritz Separation. Nexterra is a private company based in Vancouver, Canada. For more information: www.nexterra.ca.

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Information:
Darcy Quinn Manager
Marketing and Business Development, Nexterra Systems Corp.
Tel: 604.637.2501 ext.115