BaseKit Secures $6.5M for Global Expansion

    LONDON, ENGLAND, April 18, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- BaseKit has raised $6.5m in venture capital from Nauta Capital, Eden Ventures and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) from a second round of funding that takes investment in the British-based company to a combined $10m in the past year. The funding will enable the company to rapidly expand its global reach with new offices in Barcelona, Sao Paolo, Mexico DF, Buenos Aires and San Francisco.

BaseKit is an online website builder and hosting service, which enables users to create next generation websites quickly and easily using an on-screen 'drag and drop' technique, eliminating the need to write code, and placing the website owner in full control of their own site. It allows those with little or no website development experience to create and maintain websites that contain the types of features that today's internet users have come to expect.

This latest round of funding follows the successful commercial launch of BaseKit less than ten months ago. The platform is being used by a wide range of businesses and individuals to create and manage their web presence. Since launching, the company has also attracted a strong community of web designers who have turned their backs on more fragmented and traditional website building tools such as WordPress, and are using BaseKit to create a website for third parties, because it is faster and easier than other alternatives.

Carles Ferrer, general partner with Nauta said: "We are delighted to be partnering with BaseKit as it fits perfectly in our portfolio from an industry vertical and market expansion perspective. We look forward to helping the company move to the next stage."

"BaseKit has an incredibly strong offering which has the potential to take advantage of a huge global market. It's a great example of the sort of technology-based innovation that the UK excels at. We are delighted to continue to support the business and look forward to helping it thrive," says Matthew Mead, managing director of investments at NESTA.

"It is clear that many small and medium sized businesses want a better platform to manage their online presence. Basekit is a truly WYSIWYG platform and users no longer need to be a web expert to deliver beautiful and functional websites" says Charles Grimsdale, partner at Eden Venture.

"There is a huge chasm of opportunity between simple web builders who produce appalling results, and complex CMS platforms that a real user would never be able to get to grips with. BaseKit is designed to fill that gap in the market - making it possible to create great looking, modern, functional websites, but with minimal complexity," adds Juan Lobato, CEO at BaseKit. "We are poised to take full advantage of that potential in the market, and will be using the additional funding from Nauta Capital, Eden Ventures and NESTA to accelerate our international roll-out."

About BaseKit
BaseKit disrupts the traditional web hosting market. BaseKit is an easy way to create, host and manage beautiful websites online. BaseKit is based on a flexible layout structure that allows users to create a website directly from a Photoshop design, or customize one of our 100+ professionally designed website templates. Users can build their website using the easy drag & drop interface, adding widgets for text or dynamic content like Twitter, RSS, Google Maps and more. This saves them thousands of pounds and help them to achieve beautiful and powerful results.

Basekit won Seedcamp 2008 and subsequently received investment from Eden Ventures and NESTA.

About Nauta Capital
Nauta Capital manages 3 VC funds and has offices in Barcelona and Boston. Nauta launched recently its third fund, Nauta III, and is expecting to announce its closing above EUR100M in Q211. Nauta has offices in Barcelona and Boston. Nauta invests between EUR0.5M and EUR7M mainly in 3 technology verticals: wireless; enterprise SW/Saas/Security, and ecommerce/internet. Nauta's target companies for investment are in their very early stage of development (Seed Capital) and until more advanced stages of development (Series A and B). Nauta actively invests in Western Europe and the US. www.nautacapital.com.

About NESTA
NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), is an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative as a means of driving forward economic growth and solving some of the UK's major social challenges. NESTA Investments has the largest portfolios of early-stage businesses in the country and is a leading authority on how to grow new ideas.
www.nesta.org.uk

About Eden Ventures
Eden Ventures invests in technology companies in the telecommunications software, enterprise software, SaaS, digital media, e-commerce, Internet, social media and mobile sectors in Europe. As serial entrepreneurs, Eden's partners bring the highest levels of expertise in building early stage technology companies. In addition Eden brings a strong investment track record, offering potential for high returns in this exciting sector. Eden adds significant sales and marketing, organizational and financial focus and capabilities to the existing inherent technology value of its portfolio members. For more information, please visit www.edenventures.co.uk.

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