Drillinginfo Raises Another $25 million to Continue Growth

AUSTIN, Texas—Energy software company Drillinginfo, which last year raised $165 million, has received a new $25 million investment to continue its expansion.

The Austin company, which provides data and intelligence to the oil and gas industry, did not disclose the investor in the new funding round.

In March 2012, Drillinginfo closed a $165 million equity investment that was led by New York-based Insight Venture Partners and also included Battery Ventures and Eastern Advisors Private Fund.

Founded in 1999, Drillinginfo provides intelligence on where to find oil and gas, as well as data on who controls the mineral rights for those sites. The company has more than 3,000 customers in the industry across the United States, and those companies account for more than 90 percent of the oil and gas produced in the U.S., according to the company.

The deal is the third investment in an Austin energy technology company in recent weeks. RunTitle, which operates an online marketplace for mineral acreage title information, raised $4 million from Austin Ventures. Meanwhile, DrillMap, which sells a subscription-based Internet database that displays data on wells and pipelines, raised $6.5 million from investors including Houston-based energy giant ConocoPhillips.

Drillinginfo CEO Allen Gilmer said the company had not been seeking to raise an additional round of funding. “We didn’t really need the cash; it was about having the right partners, the right investors in place,” he said.

The new funding will be used for growth initiatives, Gilmer said.

“We’re working today on things that our clients will see two years from now,” he said. “We have big list of projects, all related to predictability of oil and gas production.

Drillinginfo has about 450 employees, including about 200 in Austin. The company is hiring geographic information systems professionals and data architects.

The company has made three acquisitions in the past year, and plans to make more.

In June, Drillinginfo acquired Denver-based software company Transform Software & Services Inc. for an undisclosed price. Founded in 2004, Transform develops analytic interpretation and modeling software.

Last year, it bought the assets of Wellstorm Development Inc., a Dripping Springs-based information management and development firm. It also acquired Grand Prairie-based County Scans, which provides digitized data on U.S. mineral ownership.

Financial terms of the purchases weren’t disclosed.

“We’re trying to accelerate some things and if someone has some interesting technology, rather than build it ourselves, we’ll buy it,” Gilmer said.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2013/09/19/7421406.htm