Kofax Acquires 170 Systems -- Some (Nostalgic) Thoughts
Posted by Rakesh Shukla on Mon, Sep 14, 2009 @ 03:46 PM
Last week was about as bittersweet as it gets.
After an incredible 19-year journey, the company I co-founded was acquired by Kofax. It's a great move by Kofax and immediately catapults them into THE leadership position in the AP Automation space. Kofax also acquires a proven, bullet-proof workflow platform for expanding into other document intensive business processes. Kudos to their executive leadership for recognizing some amazing synergies which I will explore in my next blog post.
But first off, let me acknowledge my fellow co-founders, Karl Buttner and Erich Orenchuk. We all graduated from MIT in 1987 and founded 170 Systems in 1990 as eager 20-something entrepreneurs.
Erich is one of the smartest people I know. He reads the Federalist Papers for fun! Never one to say much, when he does speak, it is always insightful and thought-provoking. He is an unbelievably talented software developer. He single-handedly built many of our early products. And, oh yes, when he wasn't writing code, he was also our CFO for much of the 90s.
Karl is probably the hardest working person I have ever met ... I don't think he took a day off (including weekends) for our first 12 years! Nobody cared more than Karl. Whether it was employee happiness, customer "thrillment", product quality, or really anything related to 170 Systems, Karl cared deeply. His devotion to 170 Systems was unparalleled.
There have been many super-talented, hard-working and loyal employees over the years. Way too many to thank in this post.
By anyone's standards, 19 years is a long, long time ....
How long has it been?
A baby born in 1990 would now be a sophomore in college ... remarkably, from the first day we opened our offices in Cambridge, MA, an entire generation has grown up and graduated from high school!
We started the company during the 1990 recession, raised our first (and only) round of venture funding during the 2002 recession and now have sold the company during the 2009 recession. These milestones are a testament to the fact that our products and services have delivered compelling and tangible value through both good times and bad times.
Culturally and technologically, so much has changed since 1990. I really hadn't thought much about these changes until our lawyer from the very beginning, WilmerHale's David Westenberg, put together a great retrospective of then (1990) and now (2009).
Let me share some of his clever insights with you:
OK, thank you for indulging me down memory lane ... now that I have all that nostalgia out of my system, it's time to look forward. The Kofax acquisition of 170 Systems is brilliant on both on a strategic and tactical level. I'll explain more in my next blog post.
-Rakesh Shukla
@rakesh170