Fast Start: Visitar, a Developer of CRM Communications Solutions, Lands $2.6M in Funding

, a startup founded by three former executives from business telecommunications firm Avaya, has landed $2.6 million in first-round venture funding.

Lead investor is The Aurora Funds.

Visitar is developing an integrated business communications for customer relationship management that will be offered through a software as a service model. The company unveiled its 360 degree Care viaVisitar product suite at the same time it announced the venture funding.

"This funding will help us achieve our goal to enable small and medium-sized companies to deliver world class customer care at a total cost of ownership that just makes sense," said Visitar Chief Executive Officer Peter Licata in a statement. "Customer interactions are inherently multi-channel. Our solutions empower customers to tightly integrate interactions that occur on the phone and other communication channels directly into their business applications with no specialized on premises equipment, integration, or extra work."

Utilizing open source solutions, Visitar said it offers integrated communications solutions for such applications as phone, chat and e-mail "at a fraction of the cost of comparable alternatives that require products from multiple vendors, specialized on-premise equipment, extensive integration, and costly ongoing maintenance and support".

Visitar, which is one of more than 20 companies selected to present at the upcoming Council for Entrepreneurial Development's venture conference, is led by Licata, Chief Operating Officer Janet Holt, Chief Technology Officer George Sullivan, and Vice President of Marketing Hank Barnes. Holt, Sullivan and Licata worked together at Avaya. Barnes' most recent position was at Cary-based Ultimus where he was vice president of marketing.

Visitar has a patent pending for its communication technology.

"The experience of Visitar's leadership team, combined with a product that addresses a clear need in the largest segment of U.S. businesses, made it a clear choice for our first investment in Aurora Ventures V, our fifth venture fund," said Scott Albert, managing general partner, of The Aurora Funds. "Visitar's ability to deliver a solution to a market that is sorely in need of it will transform how small and mid-sized businesses compete; this is an A-plus product from an A-plus company."

Licata was president and CEO of Vista Information Services before it was acquired by Avaya. He led global managed services at Avaya. Licata also was a founder of International Network Services.

Holt led business strategy and management for Avaya's professional services group. She founded Fulcra Solutions, an Internet communications software developer that drew Cisco as an investor.

Sullivan was CTO of Avaya's global managed services group. He was a co-founder of Vista Information Technologies.