With $11M in funding, Tidemark launches cloud-based enterprise performance manage apps

Tidemark is coming out of stealth today and launching its enterprise performance management apps for the cloud. That means the company is creating applications that can decipher a ton of enterprise data and extract information that is critical for managers to judge the performance of the business.

The applications can run in the cloud, or web-connected data centers, so that employees can access them from anywhere and use them to make better-informed decisions when running the business. The applications deliver information for managers in real-time with risk-adjusted metrics. It is useful for strategists, financial executives, operations planners, and forecasters. It helps businesses model their profit outlooks and otherwise make use of a treasure trove of company data.

Redwood City, Calif.-based Tidemark is also disclosing today that it has raised $11 million in two rounds of funding. Investors include Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Dave Duffield, co-founder and co-CEO of Workday and founder of PeopleSoft. Peter Currie, president of Currie Capital, and Phil Wilmington, former co-president of PeopleSoft and CEO of OutlookSoft, have joined Tidemark’s board of directors. Tidemark was previously known as Proferi.

The company is seizing an opportunity because the world of business intelligence hasn’t kept up with the advances in the cloud, said Christian Gheorghe, chief executive of Tidemark, in an interview.

Gheorghe said that business intelligence applications run on enterprise platforms and often can only be accessed with work computers. But managers need to access the data 24 hours a day, and too often the data analytics are delivered to late to be actionable. Tidemark’s applications enable enterprises to extrack immediate information for decision-making from large amounts of comlex and dynamic data — at a cost that is lower than existing solutions.

“This means that businesses no longer have to be reactive when it comes to data,” Gheorghe said. “A new type of app is needed in this day and age.”

Businesses have to be able to react to real-time data, such as opinions about a company that come in live via Twitter or Facebook updates. Legacy apps can’t handle that kind of volatile business environment, Gheorghe said.

The company aims to disrupt the likes of Oracle, SAP and other companies that make enterprise applications. Tidemark’s three major applications include Metrics Management and Management Reporting, which suggests what managers should do about real-time data reports. It also includes Enterprise Planning, aimed at strategic, financial and operational planners. It helps managers create budgets, forecasts and analysis. And it is launching Profitability Modeling, which lets users produce full profit-and-loss documents. All of the apps are accessible via the cloud and use an HTML5 web format interface.

The company says it has had great success with early customers such as Acosta Sales & Marketing. Tidemark is also partnering with web-based services companies SnapLogic, Cloudera, and VMware. The service will be based on a pay-as-you-go basis. The company has 30 employees.