UK-listed advertising group WPP has joined a consortium of angel investors investing $10m in the seed round for Shacho (Japanese for president).
Josh James (pictured), former founder of software provider Omniture, which was sold to Adobe for $1.8bn in 2009, started Sacho as a business intelligence technology start-up, which has yet to launch. WPP invested $25m in Omniture in January 2009 as part of a strategic partnership and sold its shares for $61.3m in its September exit to Adobe.
Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP chief executive, said: "Josh understands the issues and challenges of senior-level executives as well as the need for SaaS [software as a service-]based solutions that generate clear ROI [return on investment] for clients."
James said: "Today’s business intelligence solutions leave executives with blind spots because the information they receive is not real time and it’s often inaccurate and incomplete."