PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KS — (Marketwired) — 05/02/13 — Netchemia LLC, the leading provider of cloud-based talent management software specifically developed for K-12 school districts and institutions, announced an equity investment from Mainsail Partners to support the company-s growth plans.

The investment is part of a long-term, collaborative partnership that will allow Netchemia to tap Mainsail-s deep operational expertise and further bolster its market position. Mainsail is a San Francisco growth-equity firm focused on backing “bootstrapped” companies that have not previously taken outside capital.

The majority of the current $6.5 million investment will be used to accelerate Netchemia-s growth and enhance and expand the company-s product offering. More than 1,100 K-12 school districts and institutions in 42 states — ranging in size from fewer than 100 students to those with tens of thousands of students — use Netchemia-s TalentEd cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

Netchemia, which was founded in the Kansas City area in 2001 and works exclusively in K-12 education, is one of several growing startups in the Midwest-s “Silicon Prairie” region.

“We are excited to announce a partnership with Mainsail and the next phase of our company-s growth,” Netchemia co-founder and CEO Carlos Antequera said. “This investment will allow Netchemia to accelerate its product development and team-building plans. It was important for us to find an investor who shared our vision and had extensive company-building experience.”

Netchemia-s TalentEd K-12 Strategic Talent Management Suite delivers simple, innovative and affordable management solutions for applicant tracking and hiring (TalentEd Recruit & Hire) and performance evaluation (TalentEd Perform) without any hardware to buy or software to install.

TalentEd applications are flexible and fully customizable to empower school districts of all kinds and sizes to improve efficiencies, reduce costs, increase transparency and ultimately achieve positive educational impacts.

“Carlos and his team recognized the opportunity to leverage technology to improve the process of managing talent for school administrators,” said Stephen Wolfe, a Mainsail Partners principal. “We have a great deal of respect for entrepreneurs like Carlos who have proven they can grow their businesses rapidly and do so profitably. We look forward to working with the team to build the leading K-12 talent management platform.”

“As the value of talent management becomes more evident to educators, there is increased momentum in the marketplace to make a difference,” added Antequera. “We recognize the enormous importance of talent management in education; that finding, hiring and developing the best teachers and school leaders is fundamental to improved schools and high student achievement. It is a key part of our current national discussion over education.”

In addition to reinforcing the highly-collaborative, results-oriented experience to a rapidly growing customer base, the partnership with Mainsail provides Netchemia the freedom to continue expanding within its product development, client success, sales, marketing, and executive teams, Antequera said.

Netchemia is a leading provider of cloud-based talent management software specifically developed for K-12 educational organizations. We believe that by providing school districts with intuitive software to recruit, hire, develop and retain the best teachers and school leaders, we can help them dramatically affect student achievement.

Netchemia-s TalentEd K-12 Strategic Talent Management Suite delivers simple, innovative and affordable management solutions for applicant tracking and hiring (TalentEd Recruit & Hire) and performance evaluation (TalentEd Perform) to more than 1,100 educational organizations across the nation. TalentEd frees school leaders to focus on what-s important — finding and developing the best teachers and staff and helping them grow. To learn more, visit .

Mainsail Partners is a leading growth equity firm that invests in successful “bootstrapped” businesses and builds them into great companies. Mainsail, based in San Francisco, makes a select number of investments each year and leverages the deep operational expertise of its team to add value to its portfolio companies. The firm has raised over $350 million in committed capital from leading institutions, endowments, executives and entrepreneurs. Two of Mainsail-s portfolio companies were ranked on the 2012 Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. For more information, visit .

Zach Spain
Marketing Communications Specialist, Netchemia LLC

800-490-9686 x1514

Rebecca Buckman
Principal
The Buckman Group / For Mainsail Partners

650-703-0364

3520 W. 75th St., Suite 300
Prairie Village, KS 66208

  bootstrapped-companies, cloud-software, private-equity