ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–ClearMomentum, Inc., a Financial Performance Management (FPM) software and services company, announced record growth in 2009. The company has now achieved 5 consecutive quarters of sequential growth and has bolstered its already strong presence in Capital Managers with significant wins in the Corporate arena, including American Rock Salt and Infotonics Technology Center. New Capital Managers customers adopting ClearFinancials® , the flagship Software-as-a-Service offering, in 2009 include Alpine Investors, Monomoy Capital Partners, Nautic Partners, and Peninsula Capital Partners.

Alpine Investors: Based in San Francisco, Alpine Investors’ objective is to invest in or acquire small to mid-sized U.S. based companies. The firm’s capital, $247 million under management, may be used to provide full or partial liquidity to entrepreneurs, family members, estates, passive investors or corporate owners.

American Rock Salt: Founded in January 1997 by Joseph Bucci, Gunther Buerman, and Neil Cohen, American Rock Salt is the first successful salt mine to be built in the United States since 1960.

Infotonics Technology Center: A New York State Center of Excellence 501(c)(3) organization formed by a consortium of industry and government to promote economic growth through world-class MEMS innovation.

Monomoy Capital Partners: A $280 million private investment firm dedicated to constructive investing and business improvement in the smaller end of the middle market ($50 to $300 million in annual revenues).

Nautic Partners: Founded in 1986, Nautic Partners is a middle-market private equity firm with over $2.5 billion of equity capital and more than 100 investments under management.

Peninsula Capital Partners: An investment company founded in 1995 and specializing in subordinated 
debt and structured equity investments in superior middle-market companies. 
Through four private limited partnerships, they control over
$800 million of investment capital.

ClearMomentum provides executive managers and capital providers with an affordable performance management solution that turns data into actionable knowledge by combining financial strategy with business analytics, modeling, and budgeting. The solution provides unmatched functionality, speed and usability. New features added to ClearFinancials® in 2009 include scorecards, built-in document repository, and the User Report Designer. See www.clearmomentum.com

The financing round was completed by Trillium Group, and led by General Partner Kevin Phelps with Trillium Venture Partner, James Stoffel. Phelps and Stoffel, along with Clear Momentum founder John Grabski will be members of the Board of Directors.

ClearMomentum offers a software solution that accelerates the financial performance of organizations by taking disparate financial and non-financial data and turning it into clear and actionable management knowledge. ClearFinancials®, the flagship SaaS product, enables customers to accelerate and enhance operational reporting, better understand the key drivers of a business and improve cash flows. The company has offerings in the Capital Management, Performance Management Advisors, Corporate, and Commercial Lending markets. The Series A funding will help ClearMomentum accelerate its growth trajectory, secure strategic partners, create higher-value services and build on the company’s recent successes.

“After reviewing many opportunities in the Software-as-a-Service market for a Company with great revenue and profit potential, we identified ClearMomentum as a company that meets our rigorous criteria” said Kevin Phelps, “ClearMomentum is an outstanding company with a compelling vision to transform traditional static financial data into dynamic management information to drive better decision making.  With new capital and  the addition of Ken Kaisen as CEO, Clear Momentum is now poised to take full advantage of this market opportunity.

Industry-veteran Kaisen brings more than twenty-five years of related leadership experience to ClearMomentum. He recently served as VP / GM of Consulting and  Integration at Avaya, a global telecommunications and software company, where he was accountable for the development, P&L, and growth of Avaya’s $400 Million worldwide professional services and systems integration business. Prior to Avaya, Kaisen was at the forefront of Xerox’s transition to a services/solutions-led company, with a track record of successful product, services, marketing, and general management positions. Kaisen also has CIO experience at both Xerox and New England Business Services Inc.

About Trillium Group

Founded in 1997, Trillium Group is a Rochester, N.Y.-based private equity firm managing early stage venture capital and growth equity funds. Trillium partners have extensive venture/private equity investment and management experience, having been chief executive officers, presidents and board members of a wide variety of startup companies, joint ventures, and Fortune 100 multinationals. Trillium is dedicated to achieving venture rates of return on invested capital at acceptable levels of risk. For more information, visit www.trillium-group.com

In perhaps one of the most rigorous academic research projects ever undertaken to test the validity and effectiveness of a wide universe of financial metrics, Carton and Hofer, 2006 make the following concluding remark, “Very few non-public companies monitor the change in their Altman’s Z-score. However, the findings of this research indicate that this is the single most powerful measure for monitoring shareholder returns for both annual and three year time frames. Since this is a survival measure that is also important to creditors, management should pay particular attention to this financial performance metric”. Indeed, it only makes sense that this important measure once again outperforms every metric that it is compared against for the Z-score touches nearly every critical dimension of financial performance. While leveraging the benefits of this important metric makes perfect sense, it is the notion of capturing its change that is most meaningful. This article examines the challenges associated with capturing change and puts forth one solution to help make the process of measuring change useful from a practical perspective.

This paper offers a fresh perspective from which to gauge the ongoing viability of a firm. While investors, lending institutions and trade creditors share common concern with respect to risk, they differ according to both the time horizon and their interest in the ongoing viability of the firm. Using a synthetic credit score and the time tested Altman’s Z-score, this paper presents both measures along a simple X, Y axis plot that aims to provide a perspective of risk that is both straightforward and intuitive.

Much can be done to improve the process of managing risk in the commercial lending environment. Recent advances in technology, continuous academic progress and a groundswell of practitioners motivated by the state of the economy create the ideal atmosphere for change. While pessimists remain paralyzed in the midst of what many refer to as the ‘perfect economic storm’, tomorrow’s leaders are busy retooling processes that will make them stronger and better able to compete. This paper puts forth one change-opportunity that vastly improves the commercial lender’s insight into loan-portfolio risk and opens the door to a new era of better risk management.

Understanding the intrinsic relationship between operating cash-flow and net-income may provide important insight into the performance and economic well being of the firm. Expansion in working capital account balances that place downward pressure on operating cash flow will often precede increases in net income. In contrast, increases in operating cash flow will oftentimes provide a false sense of security to company managers that are flush with cash as net working capital requirements decline. Most financial managers keenly follow both measures separately. However, this paper will demonstrate that the relationship and timing between the two measures may provide the most meaningful insight of all.

Individual companies exhibit substantial differences with respect to operating cash to net income. Steady, but not overwhelming pressure on operational cash flow compared to net income normally indicates a healthy, growing company. To be sure, astute financial managers that understand the proper tension between operating cash flow and net income are better equipped to respond to signals that foretell the story that lie ahead.

A review of the academic paper titled, “Information Provided by Accrual and Cash-Flow Measures of Operating Activities” by Ingram and Lee, (1997) is used as the backdrop for this paper and provides substantial evidence and support for the use of operating cash-flow to net-income as a management tool. Accordingly, this paper will draw heavily from the article and will therefore acknowledge the author’s important contribution to this subject.

News/Press Release

ClearMomentum, Inc., a developer of CPM, Corporate Performance Management software and services announced record growth in the month of December for the fourth month in a row. Highlights of major customers adopting the company’s flagship product include 5LINX, Enterprises, Inc., Liberty Partners and Lone Star New Markets.

“ClearMomentum, Inc., a developer of CPM, Corporate Performance Management software and services announced record growth in the month of December for the fourth month in a row. Highlights of major customers adopting the company’s flagship product include 5LINX Enterprises, Inc., Liberty Partners and Lone Star New Markets.

About 5LINX Enterprises, Inc.: 5LINX is a global organization selling VOIP and technology products throughout the world. 5LINX® was named to the prestigious Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America for the third year in a row. Implementation of ClearFinancials® will enable 5LINX clear insight into operational performance, seamlessly integrating the corporate budget with management strategy. 5LINX Enterprises represents’ the fourth major customer this year to leverage ClearFinancials® global multi-currency translation functionality.

About Liberty Partners: Liberty Partners is a New York-based private equity investment firm with more than $1 billion under management. Founded in 1992 by former executives of Merrill Lynch Interfunding, Liberty specializes in middle-market private equity investments in manufacturing, business services, and education-related companies.

About Lone Star New Markets: Lone Star New Markets is a progressive investment firm located in Dallas, Texas. The company added ten portfolio companies to their ClearFinancials® subscription in December. Lone Star New Markets marks the second major investment firm in Texas to adopt ClearFinancials® in 2008 as a turnkey portfolio company data management solution.

ClearMomentum provides executive managers and capital providers with a Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solution that integrates financial strategy with business analytics, modeling, budgeting and is rapidly becoming the industry Gold Standard for transparent financial reporting. The solution provides an unmatched user experience delivered SaaS and can be deployed across the enterprise efficiently and cost effectively.”

Click here for the official press release.