Boomi announced it has raised $4 million in its first institutional round of financing. The investment will be used to accelerate Boomi’s go-to-market strategy and further secure the company’s high standing position as a provider of cloud-based data and application integration services.

Boomi On Demand is a fully on-demand integration service that connects any combination of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premise applications without the burden of installing and maintaining software packages or hardware appliances. With its “connect once, integrate everywhere” approach, Boomi On Demand is becoming the solution of choice among major SaaS vendors and other service providers.

Once an application is connected to Boomi On Demand, it has instant interoperability with the hundreds of other SaaS and on premise applications that Boomi supports. In addition, Boomi plans to open its platform to the developer community this fall with a software development kit (SDK) that will allow for the creation of specialized connectors by the community to support additional applications and vertical solutions. 

“This is very much a case of right solution – right time,” says Bob Moul, Boomi’s president and CEO. “Independent software vendors (ISVs) are quickly realizing they would rather spend precious R&D dollars on their applications than on building an integration layer that can be delivered as a service by Boomi. It makes little sense for every ISV to solve the same problem. By focusing on building the most robust integration solution and opening the platform for all to use, we’re laying a fundamental building block for the continued rapid expansion of the SaaS industry.”

Already in use by customers of salesforce.com, NetSuite, Intacct, Taleo, OpSource, Zuora and many others, Boomi On Demand shortens time to market for new ISVs and eliminates integration headaches for existing ISVs. It allows application providers to “go deep,” building competitive differentiation with rich functionality, while Boomi “goes wide” by handling integration with applications in the cloud and behind the firewall.

With the close of this round of funding, Amish Jani, managing director of FirstMark Capital, will join Boomi’s Board of Directors. According to Mr. Jani, “Boomi is radically changing the integration landscape. Boomi On Demand transforms integration from an expensive, labor-intensive, back-office technology to one that is a part of everyday business for companies of all sizes. This funding will allow Boomi to build upon its tremendous momentum and cement its place at the forefront of SaaS integration. Whether people are talking about cloud computing, SaaS, mashups or platform-as-a-service, integration-as-a-service will be a necessary component for the success of these technologies. Boomi is the clear leader in this market.”

Boomi On Demand’s popularity is driven by its fully cloud-based delivery model, its visual approach to integration that does not require coding, its elegant solution for behind-the-firewall integration and its pay-per-connection pricing model that finally aligns integration costs with SaaS application costs. As more and more infrastructure services move to the cloud, Boomi On Demand provides the critical element of integration to the virtual stack. ISVs can connect directly to Boomi On Demand or through platform-as-a-service providers such as OpSource.

“This investment represents an opportunity to fuel our expansion with tech-savvy investors who share our vision for becoming the de facto standard for integration in the SaaS industry,” continued Moul. “What we’re doing with Boomi On Demand is bold and unconventional. We needed a partner who could see beyond the status quo and had a passion for creating new markets. We found that partner in FirstMark Capital.”

For more information on Boomi contact Liz Smeds, lsmeds@spirecomm.com at Spire Communications.