TimeSpring Clocks in Nearly $5M

Montreal-based TimeSpring Software took home a first round of institutional capital last week worth $4.39 million. The software provider plans to expand its North American presence and bring its sales and executive offices to Silicon Valley.

Desjardins Venture Capital led the round with $2.2 million, joined by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), which invested $1.8 million. An individual investor contributed the remaining $390,000.

Desjardins investment manager Fabrice Lucherini will take a seat on TimeSpring’s board along with a representative from BDC. The round has a post-money valuation of $8.79 million.

TimeSpring develops information protection software. Two years ago, it changed from being a company that licensed and sold its technology to being a creator of software products. It plans to begin moving more of its operations to Silicon Valley and the company wants to raise its next round of funding from West Coast VCs.

“We’d like to have our product in the market, have customers in hand and then go for a US-based VC,” says Sunil Bagai, TimeSpring’s vice president of product management. “We’ve already been speaking to some. I’m assuming that for the next round we raise we will begin the process within the next six months or so.”

Lucherini says that there will most likely be another round of financing within the next 24 months. He was also involved in Desjardins’ investment with Think Dynamics, a Toronto-based software developer that was acquired by IBM in May.

TimeSpring has 22 employees and Bagai expects the company to grow to just under 40 by next September. Most of the new staff will focus on product development, he says. The company expects to break even by early 2005.

The company was founded in 1994 and was formally named Delta-Tek Research. It raised approximately $1.7 million from individual investors about two years ago.