Steve Semenzato
CEO, Cluster Seven CEO, Cluster Seven
Steve Semenzato brings over 20 years of technology management experience to his role as chief executive officer of ClusterSeven. He jointly founded the company with Andy Reeves, now CIO of P&O Ferries, in 2003. Prior to starting ClusterSeven, Steve was a UK director for Sapient management consulting and UK managing director and European general manager for Screaming Media, a global content aggregation company. Steve served as vice president of sales for Dragon Systems, a leading speech recognition company, and as channel sales director at Avid Technology
Cluster Seven provides technology for managing, analysing and auditing the activity and data generated by Excel spreadsheets in large organisations. The company was founded in London in 2003 and received £2.4 million from Quester funds, now managed by SPARK Ventures in January 2006.
On the early days.
“I was having a pint with a techie, and at one point, he said, ‘wouldn’t it be great if you could right-click on any spreadsheet and see its full history and user activity.’ And that’s what started it all.
To be honest, it’s been a tremendous struggle. It took a lot longer than we expected to get a product ready for the enterprise. On the way, we raised money from friends and family, lived in small serviced offices, paying only the engineers. It could have collapsed at any time.
We got our first order on February 6th. Then one in March. One in May and one in June. In August we closed Dresdner and it didn’t stop there. We managed $5 million of bookings in twelve months. All from a standing start.”
On the deal
“I talked to Quester on Thursday, presented our financials on Friday, and had a term sheet on Monday. We did the deal within twelve days. It was an attractive deal, a simple deal.
It’s about attitude. Quester team showed the intent to do the deal and then executed against it.”
On Quester
“Quester’s portfolio is aligned with us. They have a lot of enterprise software companies. Companies selling into financial services. And international contacts to help as we expand.
They put their hearts into it. They show they understand what we’ve got to do as a company -- where we are and where we need to go.”
On the relationship
“Quester is fired up about us. The enthusiasm is there. The experience is there. They give me the space to perform. You don’t want them all over you but you don’t want to be on your own. It’s a balance. And I think Quester gets it right.”
On the future
“We’re transitioning from a tiny, shoestring company to a company that has to invest in itself and believe in its strategy. It’s very difficult to change mindsets. The challenge is to believe in yourself and commit.
There’s a temptation to diversify too soon. I want to go deeper before we go wide.
Nirvana? Our product on every desktop right alongside Excel.” they give them a lot of freedom to succeed.”