Motiva Sells Assets to Siebel

Business: Motiva Inc. makes software to help companies keep track of their incentive and compensation programs for their sales forces.

Founded: 1996

Headquarters: Pleasanton, Calif.

Employees: About 60.

Most recent capital raised: $6.5M in late-stage funding in September 2002.

VC raised to date: $32M.

Valuation: Had a post-money valuation of $29M when it raised $15M through a Series C in August 2001

Investors: Artemis Ventures, GC&H Partners, InterWest Partners, Palomar Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Silicon Valley BancVentures, Staenberg Venture Partners and Stanford University.

Key Exec: In 2001, Motiva recruited Jeff Carr as CEO. Carr is a former PeopleSoft vice president and general manager.

Directors: Steve Bowsher of InterWest Partners; Tim Guleri and David Schwab of Sierra Ventures; and Rick Smith of Palomar Ventures.

Plans one year ago: The new funding last year was expected to support the continued development of Motiva software, as well as sales and marketing efforts. The company was looking to expand its penetration into the financial services market.

Motiva felt that it was on track to reach break-even and accounting profitability by the end of 2003. As of last September 2003, Motiva had about 20 customers, including Acme Brick Company, Clorox Services Company, First Horizon Home Loans, First Tennessee Bank, and World Savings Bank.

Status: In mid-October 2003, Siebel Systems (Nasdaq: SEBL) acquired assets of Motiva. Palomar’s Smith says the enterprise incentive management space in which Motiva is operating is developing into a good space, but has been taking longer than expected.

“Frankly we were losing accounts in Motiva that we would not lose if we had a stronger partner,” Smith says. “And Siebel looks like a great combination for Motiva. It was hard for the stand alone to survive and it seemed like a good thing to do to hook up Siebel.”

Smith identified the acquisition price in the range of under $20 million, whereas various Internet publications mentioned the range of under $3 million in cash.

“It was not a home run deal for us, but at least we were able to get some money back for our investors, that’s sort of what we are shooting for,” Smith says.

Siebel is targeting Q4 2003 for the delivery of the integrated product, which will be called Siebel Incentive Compensation.