IBM has signs agreement to acquire the cloud marketing platform Silverpop, backed by Michigan's Wolverine fund.
Michigan University’s Wolverine Venture Fund is seeing its fourth successful exit with Silverpop, a privately held software company, that has been acquired by IBM for an undisclosed amount. Silverpop was one of the fund’s first investment’s in 2000, when it contributed $200,000 to an early financing round.
The Wolverine Venture Fund is managed by approximately 28 MBA students at the university’s Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, who seek, screen and negotiate investments. The fund is worth $5.5m, and has an advisory board made up of professional venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.
The fund has invested in over three dozen companies since its inception. It has seen three other exits. The fund first scored a win when Versity.com was acquired in 1999. Medical device company IntraLase then became its first portfolio company to go public, returning more than $1m in proceeds. HandyLab was acquired by BD and earned Wolverine a six-fold, cash-on-cash return delivering $2m to the fund.
Faculty Managing Director, professor Erik Gordon, said: “The fund and the students who led the due diligence and investment process in Silverpop had the foresight to invest in an innovative technology pioneer and in a market opportunity that would grow to become the huge marketing automation industry that it is today.”
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.
