EDO Interactive $20MM

EDO Interactive announced its has raised $20MM. Earlier coverage here.

edo Interactive Google, Groupon talent

Edo Interactive in Nashville's Green Hills area has hired former Google and Groupon execs, per the company's news releases here and here. Earlier edo coverage on VNC here.

edoInteractive hires Google veteran

Former Google sales/marketing/agency development director Mark Marinacci is now Chief Revenue Officer for edoInteractive, the gift, loyalty and stored value card provider based here. The release is here.

edo Interactive names Jim Kever chairman

edo Interactive, long led by CEO Ed Braswell (left) and backed by VC Claritas and others, has named Envoy founder, entrepreneur and superangel (with Fred Goad in Voyent Partners) Jim Kever chairman of its board. The release is here. The company recently named Clay Whitson, former as iPayment, as its CFO.

edo Interactive names Whitson CFO

edo Interactive, the early-stage stored-value and gift-card provider, recently named Clay Whitson, formerly of iPayment, its chief financial officer.

edo Interactive in prepaid honors queue

Despite the competition in the sliced-and-diced stored-value card sector, Nashville-based edo Interactive continues to win enough love to find itself a finalist in Paybefore.com's annual competition, among consumer-funded card programs.

edo Interactive: No worries

American Express recently cannonballed into the online payments field with its $300MM acquisition of Revolution Money, a person-to-person payments platform. Among other movants, SocialWise and OfferPal have teamed up to offer BillMyParents.com. No worries, though, at Nashville-based edo Interactive. edo CEO Ed Braswell (at left), responding to our query about the splash made by AmEx, told us a few days ago, "Revolution Money has not been a direct competitor to edo. I think the validation is that large payment companies are looking for innovation, they are not building internally due to budget cuts in R&D. I see the acquisition by Amex as positive for edo."

VC quarterly update

PWC-NVCA-MoneyTree roundup says $16.8MM went to five TN firms in 3Q. The TSN reports it here. One firm named: edo Interactive. Meanwhile, PEHub, among others, complains about conflicting numbers.

edo Interactive Update

edo Interactive CEO Ed Braswell (at left), 51, is banking on a boom in his startup's business: In a recent interview with VNC, Braswell said he believes that before year's-end, "we'll be managing some of the largest card programs in the country, some of the largest brands." He would not provide details, but the statement reinforces the sense edo may focus more on B2B customers who control strong brands, rather than on consumers. (So far, Coca-Cola, H&R Block and Baskin-Robbins have partnered with edo.) Braswell pointed out he has raised $15 million in outside capital, and has recently heavied-up his management ranks, preparing for a surge. In September, he announced hiring veteran tech marketer Jay Graves as edo's chief technology officer; and, Lisa McGinty as vice president for business development. As of Sept. 25, edo Interactive had 21 employees, 18 of them based here. What do they do all day? In what he calls his "one-floor elevator pitch," Braswell said edo is creating "a new advertising channel for retailers with financial card products." Edo isn't putting all its eggs in its own prepaid debit cards (represented by its Facecard flagship and nine other branded cards). Instead, the company is stepping-up its effort to get financial institutions and other brand-owners to integrate edo's Prewards technology and advertising platform into their operations, expanding an important revenue stream. Touting "edo Technology Solutions," the edo site says the company "is a pioneer in developing technologies that leverage pre-existing global, point of sale (POS) payments infrastructure along with modern social networking communities for digital marketing purposes." Earlier VNC coverage of edo Interactive is here.

edo Interactive adds Marketing exec

edo Interactive, the digital payments and marketing platform provider, today announced the appointments of Jay Graves as CTO. In its release today, Graves co-founded database marketing agency SmartDM here, and after 12 years sold it to Little Rock data behemoth Acxiom Corporation. Graves was most recently with Merkle Inc., a marketing-services provider, where he was vice president of product development. Unmentioned in the edo release was the fact that Graves for a time was CEO of locally based Hobby Lobby International. He is shown at left with one of HL's products. In August, edo raised $8.5MM from Clayton Associates and others. Earlier VNC coverage here.

edo Interactive gets more VC money

Clayton Associates and First Avenue Partners made news this morning by announcing their investment of $8.5MM in edo Interactive. Apparently, getting marketing traction in this environment is taking more juice than edo imagined, prior to the Great Recession. VNC's earlier report on edo's $8MM placement registration and related stories.

Braswell goes for more dough for edo

No details yet, but this week's edo Interactive filing with the SEC left little doubt the that edo CEO Ed Braswell believes he needs more money for something... $8MM worth. Here's what we think we know.

New media too risky for some marketers

Our Oct. 6 story on edo Interactive's successful fundraising round and their marketing push were prompted in part by a Sept. 30 release from edo, in which they cited a 2006 study by Forrester Research (summarized here). Marketers want to try new media, but are concerned about risks and budget tradeoffs. Edo, of course, says its new marketing platform with real-time tracking of campaign results helps put that issue to bed. We'll see. Our story today is here.