Aria Systems raises $10M more for online billing

Aria Systems, perhaps the first company to offer billing and subscription management through a software-as-a-service business model (i.e., online subscriptions), has raised a $10 million second round.

The Media, Pa.-based company has been around since 2003, but interest in online billing software seems to have taken off this year — and it’s not just Aria chief executive Ed Sullivan who says so. A new competitor called Zuora, led by an early employee of SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com, launched several products this year, and has attracted funding from some big-name investors, including Benchmark Capital and Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff.

Zuora may have high-profile investors, but Sullivan says Aria has the advantage of being first. It boasts customers in 238 countries, and the third quater of 2008 saw sales bookings double from the second, which saw bookings quadruple from the first. Aria’s customers, who used to be “startup guys” for the most part,  have also changed dramatically this year, Sullivan says, with many more big companies looking for an affordable way to handle the many moving parts that go into billing and subscriptions.

“I think in six months it’s going to be a different world,” he says. “The SaaS waters are rising and the winners are going to be the companies that are positioned and ready that have a product that can sell into those mainstream companies that are publicly traded … or have to go through public audits.”

The new round comes from Venrock, with participation from previous investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Dave Labuda, an industry veteran Sullivan previously described as “the Michael Jordan of billing.” Aria has raised a total of $14 million.

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