If you haven't heard of outsourcing governance software, well today Digital Fuel announced that it has secured $20 million in new funding. I wasn't able to check my Financing calculator by the time of this post, but this puts the company over $30 million in financing for Series B through Series D rounds. Now I hate rules of thumb (because they can be so wrong as cited by well-known VCs such as by partners at firms like Accel, etc.), but in the enterprise software space, it had once been said that cumulative capital raises on the order of $30 millionish was about the money needed to get a company public.

In any case, I digress. From Apax (new lead investor):

Gal Hayut, Director of Apax Partners, said: "The outsourcing market has grown significantly in the last years, estimated today at $300b and expected to maintain its rapid growth. Digital Fuel's solution addresses the growing need of the outsourcing market for service management solutions. This kind of investment fits our venture strategy of investing significant amounts in later stage and more mature companies like Digital Fuel that has gained a leadership position already acknowledged by top tier global customers."

I've categorized this post in the Market Perturbations category because as I see it, when a company is on trend with a major thing (i.e., outsourcing) and has both been leading and been involved in a large late-stage financing, it's a area to watch closely. Again credit to Torsten Jacobi for pointing me to the Digitial Fuel news.

Steve Shu