$65m for BI Firm Birst May Be 'Last' Private Funds

San Francisco-based business analytics provider Birst Inc. has closed a $65m round of funding led by Wellington Management Co., adding to more than $90m raised previously. Money will go to sales and marketing, R&D and international growth.

Wellington was joined in the round by existing backers Sequoia Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, DAG Ventures and Northgate Capital. Chairman Brad Peters, who founded Birst in 2005 and has since switched it from a focus on larger financial services customer to a more general service for smaller customers, told the Wall Street Journal this would probably be the last private funding round, and the company will go public if conditions are right.

Peters, a former Siebel Systems exec who last year brought in a new CEO, Jay Larson, so he himself can concentrate on products, and partnerships with the likes of Amazon and SAP, sees a gap in provision for enterprises with '100 to 1,000 people', who he says have 'sophisticated needs' not adequately served by desktop products.

Birst also has offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and is online at www.birst.com .