In October 2002, CambridgeSoft announced an investment of $3.2 million by Edison Venture Fund; John Martinson, Edison's managing partner, joined CambridgeSoft's board of directors
CambridgeSoft products are used by hundreds of thousands of chemists, biologists, scientists, and engineers who work in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and chemical industries, including government and academic research.
Since 1986, CambridgeSoft has been solving the problems of electronic storage and communication of chemical structures, models and information.
Starting with ChemDraw, then broadening to ChemOffice in 1992, CambridgeSoft extended its software from the desktop to ChemOffice WebServer enterprise solutions and databases in 1998.
Cheryl Haze, Edison's VP Analysis, led the due diligence process.
She observed, "CambridgeSoft offers an extensive set of products.
"Their development staff is prolific producing qualify software applications.
John Martinson marveled, "CambridgeSoft provides enterprise solutions for knowledge management, research and discovery, applied bioinformatics and chemical database products.
"The recently launched E-Notebook is on the way to becoming the new standard for daily record keeping of scientists." Nearly all major drug and chemical companies are customers.
Major universities and government research libraries have site licenses.
CambridgeSoft partners with chemical information providers and software companies.
Edison has previously invested in ten information technology businesses serving the drug and chemical industries.
Michael Tomasic, CambridgeSoft CEO, stated, "Edison's extensive experience will help us prepare for accelerating growth".
"Besides capital, Edison provides value added services".
Stewart Rubenstein, president and co-founder, noted "CambridgeSoft evaluated many venture capital firms before selecting Edison as our only investor.
"We look forward to benefiting from John Martinson's advice on business strategy, distribution channels and organization development."
