Net Technologies Taps Client for First Round of Funding

With its eye on the prize, Lynda Meyer, founder and CEO of Net Technologies, has spent the past five years slowly building up a solid client base for her Internet consulting service, and creating a passel of out-of-the-box online calculators and tools for financial Web sites. Well, hardwork pays off, and Net Technologies has just completed its first round of financing, valued at "up to" $3 million.

Freedom Securities Corp., the Boston-based holding company of regional brokerages like Tucker Anthony, lead the round. Meyer, who brings 17 years of experience at such firms as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley to the table, explains that Tucker Anthony was, in fact, its first client, and "the relationship has blossomed, culminating in this." What better way for a client to show its support for a vendor than to finance it?

The company released, last year, its first product, DoTell Interactive, which allows people to post voice messages on a Web site. The system is sold as a standalone product or an outsourced solution. The services proves perfect for buy- and sell-side firms that want to upload commentary from money managers and analysts. Only a year after its official release, Net Technologies already boasts Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Commonfund as clients, the first using the in-house version, the latter opting for the service bureau arrangement.

In the case of Commonfund, an investment manager just picks up a phone and dials into Net Tech's server farm, where the call is processed. Although the DoTell application can post the comment directly to the site, Commonfund, defers the managers' comments, first, to its compliance team. Already a satisfied client, Commonfund is also preparing to go live with another Net Technologies' product, InstaManager, a multimedia, streaming application that its investment managers will use to upload richer presentations to the site.