SaaS company Panaya Inc. has raised $6 million from Hasso Plattner Ventures (HPV), the venture capital firm set up by SAP company founder Dr. Hasso Plattner. Hasso Plattner Ventures together with existing investors Benchmark Capital and Battery Ventures will buy Tamares Group’s stake in the company.

Panaya Inc., founded in 2006, provides software tools that save SAP customers up to 50% of their software upgrade and maintenance costs, while minimizing risks and proving clear ROI.

This is Panaya's third round of fund raising in the past year, and the start-up has raised $23 million to date.

With its R&D center in Ra'anana, Panaya is the first company that has harnessed cloud-computing to bring the power of a virtual supercomputer simulation to SAP customers, in a way that they can easily tap through the web. The company plans to extend the service to Oracle E-Business Suite users in 2011.

In less than two years the company has landed hundreds of customers including Bosch, Cadbury, Centrica, The Home Depot, Mercedes-Benz, Newell Rubbermaid, Shell, Sony, and Volvo.

Panaya founder and CEO Yossi Cohen said, “We are pleased that HPV, the venture capital firm of Hasso Plattner, SAP's legendary co-founder and SAP's chairman, has joined our team of investors. With HPV on board we'll be able to help even more SAP customers reduce the cost of upgrades and maintenance. And HPV's business network will be instrumental in our expansion plans.”

Published by Globes, Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 21, 2010

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