Monday, March 3, 2008

Envista's software aims to ease public planning problems

By Christopher Calnan

Beverly-based software maker Envista Corp. closed this month on a $2 million round of investment it plans to use to launch a web-based application that helps coordinate road projects and utility work in order to take pressure off tight public-works budgets.

The launch, planned for three weeks from now, comes after one year of development, during which Envista tested its application with 25 to 30 municipalities, utility companies and highway departments, CEO Rick Fiery said.

Envista's on-demand application includes a mapping component and is designed to streamline infrastructure work done by municipalities and utilities to help them save money, he said. For example, a utility that plans to do work on a roadway could view a transportation department's routine paving schedule and save the cost of repaving required after burying power lines.

Fiery said no other company produces an application to coordinate such work nationally. "We haven't seen anyone attacking the problem we're attacking," he said.

The financing, which Fiery said closes the company's Series A round, will fund a marketing campaign. The investment increases the total amount of venture capital raised by Envista to $7 million since it launched in 2006. Fiery said that he expects a Series B financing at the end of this year.

Investors include Boston-based Egan-Managed Capital; Hanover, N.H.-based Borealis Ventures; and Point Judith Capital of Providence, R.I.

Envista board member Jesse Devitte, managing director and co-founder of Borealis Ventures, called Envista's information-sharing approach unprecedented in the industry. "It's the only centralized web-based application that synchronizes the construction, budgeting and planning for infrastructure," he said

Fiery co-founded the company with Marc Fagan, former president and co-founder of Vanderweil Facility Advisors Inc., a Boston company that develops software for capital planning.

Envista's technology was acquired from Barchan Associates LLC, a Winchester firm founded in 2002.

Fiery previously served as vice president of global finance for Bentley Systems Inc., a Pennsylvania-based software company. Before that, he founded and served as CEO of Beverly software maker Infrasoft Corp., which was acquired by Bentley Systems in 2003.