Laszlo Networks $1M Seed Round

Broadband application provider Laszlo Systems is expected to announce today that it has received $1 million in seed funding.

“I started Laszlo a year ago with a vision and $1 million is what we figured we needed to get going,” said David Temkin, the company’s president.

The San Francisco-based firm will use the new money to further strengthen its development team and complete the initial release of its network-based application platform, which is expected to ship in the middle of next year.

Exactly which customers will use the product is unclear at this point, however. Temkin remained mum on the subject, saying only that anyone who uses a Web-based application would benefit from Laszlo’s broadband technology.

To that end, he was unable to define precisely when the company will begin posting revenue or profits because it has yet to determine a pricing model for its flagship product.

The only thing Temkin seemed absolutely sure of is that, at some point next year, the new company will be headed for another dip in the private equity pool.

“We haven’t made a specific determination on how much more we will need but, at the least, we will definitely need another round,” he said.

General Catalyst and Sofinnova Ventures co-led the company’s most recent financing and received a pair of board seats as part of the deal. Another director’s seat will be given to whomever is hired to be the company’s chief executive.

As of now, the company employs just eight workers and plans to phase in a chief executive and other employees as the right candidates make their way to the start-up.

“We’re working on looking through contacts,” Temkin said. “We are casting a wide net, and we will wait for the right people before we hire anyone.”

Laszlo’s biggest challenge going forward, according to Temkin is “demonstrating that applications this good are possible. They are a reality, but people already have certain notions in their minds and it will be our job to change that.”

He should know. Temkin is a former senior engineering executive at Excite@home and was an instrumental part of the team that guided the development of the AT&T-funded interactive television software platform.

Robert Carr, a partner at Sofinnova, agreed that Laszlo is ready to set another Internet revolution in motion.

“The initial phase of the Web is now mature and consolidated. The ocean of HTML applications has pushed the current Web architecture as far as it will go,” Carr said. “Laszlo enables a new generation of compelling Web applications, with depth and interactivity.”

Danielle Fugazy can be contacted at: Danielle.Fugazy@tfn.com

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