Rochester, NY – September 19, 2019 – Jorsek, a leading national provider of knowledge management software for the technical documentation market, announced today it raised $2.7 million in funding led by Armory Square Ventures (ASV), along with participation from Greycroft and Drake Ventures. The investment – Greycroft’s first in an Upstate NY startup – reflects the growing power of the region as a technology hub. The round will enable Jorsek to ramp up sales and marketing to help more companies solve the painful process of publishing and managing large volumes of technical content.
“We are thrilled to support the Jorsek team and collaborate with CEO Patrick Bosek and CTO Casey Jordan,” said Somak Chattopadhyay, founder and managing partner of ASV. “Patrick is a very strong operator who brings a unique combination of engineering, technical and sales skills. Casey is a highly talented CTO and has built a world-class engineering team. With Jorsek, we saw a golden opportunity to advance a cloud solution that turns unstructured knowledge into structured content, and aids large enterprises by streamlining the update and technical writing processes. Jorsek also has strong recurring revenues and solid unit economics. The investment will supercharge its growth.” Chattopadhyay joins Jorsek’s board of directors as part of this round.
Jorsek software allows companies to publish and manage large, fluid volumes of technical information that companies need to share in real-time with large groups of employees and customers. Employees can collaborate on files using a single authoring tool that automatically reformats content into multiple channels, such as websites, PDFs, print, email, and e-books. Jorsek’s cloud-based tools are delivered in a subscription model online, supporting some of the largest technical documentations in the world for leading companies such as Allstate, Analog Devices, F5, NetApp, and Kyocera. In the past few years, Jorsek’s revenue has grown nearly 300%. The investment marks the company’s first round of institutional capital.
“Jorsek provides a single source of truth for knowledge management, which gives our customers more speed, efficiency and consistency in the way they publish technical content,” said Jorsek Co-founder and CEO Patrick Bosek. “Our technology is based on open standards, allowing companies to avoid vendor lock-in and easily port content. Writers’ don’t have to futz with formatting anymore, or assembling and updating materials, only content entry. With our cloud software, companies can cut knowledge management costs by as much as 80%. Now, we are breaking down silos and federating the knowledge function inside a business so a company can focus more on educating their employees and customers and filling their knowledge gaps based on AI.”
Will Szczerbiak, a Principal at Greycroft who oversees the investment in Jorsek, said the company has a unique opportunity to lead the growing category of collaboration software for technical documentation. “Jorsek has a deep product and bunch of great early customers. Now it just needs to scale,” he said. “Jorsek can become a true system of record for this type of content. We hope to help accelerate things on that front because doing so can unlock the venture scale potential of the opportunity.”
The Jorsek funding is the latest in a string of investments Greycroft has recently made in emerging tech hubs like Charleston, SC, Bend, OR, Phoenix, AZ and Charlotte, NC. Szczerbiak said the Rochester area is particularly attractive because its great universities and sizeable engineering community give it the ability to develop game-changing technology that can reach global markets.
MIT economics professor John Gruber recently ranked Rochester as the top emerging tech hub out of 102 metropolitan areas in the U.S. Other Upstate NY metro areas such as Syracuse, Binghamton/Ithaca, Buffalo and Albany also ranked in the top 20 cities of Gruber’s tech hub index. The ranking is based on city statistical data, including the population’s age, education level and quality of life metrics such as housing prices.
“I do not buy the notion that the best companies will only be built out of major tech hubs,” said Szczerbiak.
About Jorsek
Founded in 2005, Jorsek is based in Rochester, NY and Krakow, Poland. Jorsek is a leading provider of knowledge management software for technical communities around the world, helping companies to solve their complex content problems with a new way of authoring, organizing, and managing their documentation. From growing small businesses to Fortune 500 Enterprises, clients use Jorsek’s open technology and cloud software products to manage millions of topics in their structured content to educate employees and customers. For more information, visit https://easydita.com/.
About Armory Square Ventures
Armory Square Ventures is a seed and early-stage venture capital firm based in Upstate New York and New York City. The firm invests in software and technology-enabled services companies in emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems often overlooked by other investors. Armory Square Ventures has offices in Syracuse and New York City. The fund’s investments include ACV Auctions, Agronomic Technology Corporation (acquired by Yara), Bentobox CMS, Clerio Vision, Good Uncle (acquired by Aramark), Squarefoot, Vengo Labs and Vizbee. For more information, visit www.armorysv.com.
About Greycroft
Greycroft is a seed-to-growth venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build the world’s most transformative companies. Greycroft has made over 300 investments across the tech sector, including Acorns, Huffington Post, Icertis, Plated, Shipt, TheRealReal, Thrive Market, Trunk Club, and Venmo. For more information, please visit: www.greycroft.com.
