CentrPort Is Relaunched As IntellaKey

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

CentrPort's E-Business Marketing Platform™ quickly transformed a company's existing mass marketing systems into a coordinated one-to-one marketing platform for large corporate clients capable of learning from customer web interaction and responding in real-time with the most timely, relevant and mutually-beneficial marketing message.

• Since 2000, Centrport had developed and continued to upgrade its technology platform with $20 million of R & D spending
• Proven scalability and rich feature set attracted many online advertisers as clients including General Motors, AT&T and Nestle, Delta, SBC, Bank of Montreal, and Cablevision
• The company filed for bankruptcy and had a long drawn out auction process

INVESTMENT APPROACH

• On September 1, 2005 Cat Trail acquired the IP and software from Centrport, LLC through a bankruptcy process
• Cat Trail, after a shortened due diligence period, recognized that the bankruptcy process had wreaked havoc on the company and damaged the company’s reputation. Therefore, Cat Trail made a strategic low bid including few contingencies to win the auction process over other bidders including a partnership of the Tribune, Gannett and Knight Rider
• Cat Trail performed a risk evaluation on the bankrupt company and decided to make an offer for the IP at a very low value
• Cat Trail was able to transition the entire Centrport technical team to form a new entity named IntellaKey. The company was repositioned to help brand advertisers reach targeted audiences with Centerport’s proven technology
• Unfortunately, Centrport through the bankruptcy process alienated prior investors such as Thomas Weisel, Trident Capital, Draper Richards, and Silicon Valley Bank who all were adamant that the failure of the company was solely due to Management execution

CAT TRAIL EDGE

• Cat Trail slowly brought down the team of 16 employees to a core tech team of 5 individuals
• Cat Trail at the same time took a very active role in moving forward with a new name, identity, and leadership
• The seven month long bankruptcy process proved that a complete replacement solution was difficult to find but due to company execution risk, customers opted for lesser solutions made up of a various software product alternatives
• Despite claims of customer loyalty and meetings where customer management teams discussed the possibility of long term contract extensions, customers had ample opportunity to review other market products
• Customers also began to analyze the cost benefit of the solution to current cheaper and yet less robust applications and while CentrPort executed hundreds of targeted campaigns with multiple blue-chip clients across Tier 1 publisher properties such as Yahoo, MSN, and AOL, clients could not get the past abrupt and negative experience of the lengthy bankruptcy process.

EXIT STRATEGY

• After 18 months, Cat Trail decided to liquidate the assets of Centrport. IntellaKey, was pursued by several entities interested in acquiring the assets, including a publicly-traded entity. However, the contingencies to close were too great and the combined shareholders of IntellaKey unanimously rejected the various offers.