DocuWare Takes on Funding

German document imaging ISV DocuWare has secured a round of financing from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital LP. The financing will be used to help the company pursue its aggressive international growth strategy. Last year, we ran an article in our premium edition of DIR where we interviewed Steve Behm, who had recently been promoted to the new position of VP of Americas. Behm discussed the investments the company was making in expanding its sales channel to improve on the already impressive 19% growth the company reported for 2010. This had brought DocuWare to to just over $20 million in annual revenue worldwide.

DocuWare also recently announced a DocuWare Europe subsidiary and named a worldwide marketing VP, as well as appointed a Canadian sales director.

The amount of the investment by Morgan Stanley was not announced, but a six-member board of directors has been created that includes two Morgan Stanley execs, as well as DocuWare's co-presidents Jurgen Biffar and Thomas Schneck. The other two members seem to be technology industry veterans, including the Chariman, who served previously as a supervisory member of the DocuWare board.

Said Peter Chung, Managing Director and Head of Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital: "DocuWare has built a tremendous, international franchise, servicing an impressive base of customers through a broad network of highly trained, go-to-market partners.  Given DocuWare’s proven success and long-term investment in quality software and partner development, Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital believes the company is well-positioned to capitalize on the significant market opportunity available to provide document management solutions to middle-sized enterprises and government agencies."

If you remember, a couple years ago, DocuWare also made a major investment in SaaS product development with an eye toward the future of the market.