Inova enters merger agreement with Vertical*i

Vertical*i, Inc. and Inova SA today announced they have entered into a merger agreement effective December 6, 2010. The combined company will be known as Inova Software Inc, in North America and Inova Software, SA in Europe.

“We increasingly found that many of our customers' game-changing ideas required some components to be sourced from outside the company”

The merger will combine Vertical*i's leadership in Business Development and Alliance Management software with Inova's recognized expertise in Strategic Innovation software. The combined software suite consists of three primary modules: Inova for R&D (Research and Development), Inova for BD&L (Business Development and Licensing), and Inova for CFO. By expanding the combined companies' strategy to provide an integrated software suite, Inova now allows customers to leverage innovation opportunities in and outside the company, and turn these opportunities into performing assets. The new company will immediately broaden efforts to sell to the Life Sciences and Consumer Packaged Goods Industry.

"Today's announcement is a key element of Inova Software's strategy to drive value and immediately provide the market with a collaborative and agile innovation solution for businesses," said Gilles Toulemonde, Chief Executive Officer of Inova Software.

The merger will accelerate the use of Vertical*i's end-to-end solution for decision-makers. The solution is an ideal component for fast, efficient business transactions because customers gain increased responsiveness and accountability, more time for value added partnering activities and better-informed decision-making. The joined companies will also leverage Inova's unique Enrichment Technology. By matching, sorting, and grouping ideas and insights, the Enrichment Technology intelligently discovers innovation "hot spots" in a business' knowledge base. Furthermore, by tracking each person's interests and expertise, the Enrichment Technology connects innovators from across an organization to form powerful collaboration networks and allows customers to build catalogues of winning idea proposals. The merger brings the advantage to achieve full-scale, innovation lifecycle management solutions to any innovative business industry.

"We increasingly found that many of our customers' game-changing ideas required some components to be sourced from outside the company," said Gilles Toulemonde. "As we have built more functionality into our suite to support the ongoing partnerships that our customers forge; it became apparent that the enrichment capabilities available in the Inova suite would serve to enhance the ability to collaborate more on innovations with their alliance partners, which helps to solidify them as Partner-of-Choice in an increasingly competitive environment," Hansruedi Kottmann, CEO of Vertical*i and now President of Inova Software Inc.