Founded in 2005, Los Angeles, California-based Passenger helps "companies redefine their customer relationships by fundamentally changing the way consumers are able to communicate with their brands," Steamboat Ventures Managing Director Dan Beldy said in a statement.

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Funding to Accelerate Company’s Business Success and Technology Leadership in On-Demand Customer Collaboration Market

LOS ANGELES, CA, August 7, 2007 -- Passenger®, the technology leader in on-demand customer collaboration, today announced that it has secured $8.3 million in Series B funding led by Steamboat Ventures, a venture capital firm affiliated with The Walt Disney Company. In addition, Shelter Capital Partners, which led Passenger’s Series A funding, and StarVest Partners also contributed to the round. Concurrent with the investment, Dan Beldy, managing director of Steamboat Ventures and Larry Bettino, general partner at StarVest Partners, will join the company’s board of directors.

Passenger, the software-as-a-service company that enables brands and customers to collaborate within the social context of a private online community, will use the capital to accelerate sales and product development efforts. Additionally, the company will use the funds to organically build its growing footprint by adding a New York office.

"As more and more companies endeavor to embrace their customers in a mutually beneficial manner, industry-leading businesses have come to rely on Passenger’s leading-edge customer collaboration technology platform," said Andrew Leary, co-founder and CEO of Passenger. "These strategic investor partnerships validate our corporate direction, market leadership and strong prospects for continued growth. Their support will help fuel the strategic growth of Passenger’s businesses and accelerate the enhancement of our on-demand technology platform so that we can continue to focus on what’s most important “ the success of our clients."

Increasingly, brand marketers are turning to social strategies to better collaborate with their customers. Passenger has been taking advantage of this growing trend by leveraging the social networking phenomenon and enabling brands, such as ABC Studios, to tap into the inherent valuable insight of consumer dialogue online.

“Passenger’s innovative, elegant software service platforms are helping companies redefine their customer relationships by fundamentally changing the way consumers are able to communicate with their brands,” said Beldy. “The company’s management team is experienced and they have developed a great product that allows Passenger to take full advantage of the rapidly emerging customer collaboration market. We look forward to working closely with them.”

“Leading brands are clamoring to effectively incorporate customer collaboration strategies into their business,” said Art Bilger, managing member of Shelter Capital Partners. “With its leading edge technology platform and extensive customer engagement expertise, Passenger is strategically positioned to harness the tremendous market potential by offering the most comprehensive and intuitive customer collaboration platform in the industry.”

The latest round will bring Passenger’s total funding to approximately $12.5 million.

Passenger will continue to focus on providing its clients with a combination of leading-edge social networking, community building and collaboration technologies “ provided in a single, intuitive and scalable platform.