SAP NetWeaver Fund Makes Strategic Investment in Visiprise

Delivering on its commitment to help customers and partners experience the business value of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced it has made a minority investment in Visiprise, a leading provider of business solutions for integrated manufacturing operations. Today’s announcement marks the third investment for SAP’s $125 million global SAP NetWeaver® Fund and underscores SAP’s commitment to fuel the development of innovative solutions built on the SAP NetWeaver® platform.

“Visiprise is committed to delivering innovative solutions that take advantage of the SAP NetWeaver platform,” said Sean McCloskey, president and CEO of Visiprise. “Our customers want shop-floor to top-floor integration and control on an enterprise level. Collaborating with SAP on behalf of our current and future customers provides the market with a very sophisticated, single-platform, manufacturing solution. This investment will enable us to accelerate our growth and development on the SAP NetWeaver platform.”

Visiprise solutions help customers plan, define, control, execute and analyze manufacturing operations in a single environment, to easily integrate with existing enterprise applications. The combination of the Visiprise Manufacturing business solution and leading enterprise software from SAP – integrated through the SAP® xApp™ Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP xMII) composite application – offers manufacturers a complete solution for top-to-bottom manufacturing management and control. The seamless integration of solutions from SAP and Visiprise helps mutual customers to reduce operational costs, increase customer retention and rapidly respond to changing market conditions.

Serving industries such as aerospace and defense, electronics, automotive and specialty vehicles, and medical device manufacturing, more than 200 customers around the globe turn to Visiprise for improvements in operating costs, quality and manufacturing visibility. Visiprise is based in Atlanta, Georgia and earned both “Certified for SAP NetWeaver” and “Powered by SAP NetWeaver” status for Visiprise Manufacturing.

“The SAP ecosystem continues to gain momentum and the establishment of the SAP NetWeaver Fund further underscores our dedication to co-innovation and driving real customer value with partners,” said Jim Mackey, head of Corporate Finance for SAP and co-manager of the SAP NetWeaver Fund. “We’re pleased to make this investment and look forward to continuing co-innovation with Visiprise for the benefit of our mutual customers.”

SAP NetWeaver Fund
The SAP NetWeaver Fund was established in May 2006 and focuses on strategic investments in select companies that are committed to the SAP ecosystem and are building innovative solutions based on the SAP NetWeaver platform. Opening up the platform to encourage development and co-innovation has been a key driver for SAP in recent years, and the formation of the SAP NetWeaver Fund represents yet another investment in SAP’s growing ecosystem. Financed out of SAP’s corporate development funds, the $125 million SAP NetWeaver Fund complements the efforts of SAP’s venture arm, SAP Ventures, and is managed jointly by Zia Yusuf, executive vice president of Platform Ecosystem at SAP and Jim Mackey, head of Corporate Finance at SAP.