Vindicia
Encyclopedia
Vindicia is a B-to-B-to-C cloud computing
, SaaS
marketing, billing and CRM platform company headquartered in Belmont, California
, USA that provides digital merchants with an online recurring billing and subscription management platform. Vindicia works with digital leaders selling subscriptions or digital goods such as virtual currency
and virtual goods. Vindicia is a PCI Level 1 SSAE-16 (formerly SAS 70 Type II) audited company. In addition to their online recurring billing and one-time payments platform, they offer marketing automation, chargeback
management, fraud screening, and built-in best practices for customer retention
and customer acquisition
strategies around billing, marketing, CRM, business models, and operations that are customized for customers.
cofounder Gene Hoffman, former eMusic
VP of Technology Brett Thomas, and Mark Elrod as a company specializing in software as a service
(SaaS) marketing, billing and CRM platform.
On November 1, 2010, Vindicia announced raising $20 Million in a Series E financing round with FTV Capital leading the funding and in partnership with existing investors Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI).
. It is a privately held, venture-backed company
.
streams while lowering ongoing customer acquisition costs. CashBox addresses the needs of online merchants of any size and scale who offer intangible goods and services across a wide range of industries.
Vindicia's CashBox subscription billing and one-time transactions billing platform consists of a billing system where merchants can define billing plans, issue refunds, create payment retry schedules. CashBox also functions as a CRM
tool and marketing automation
and enterprise marketing management
platform, where merchants can track marketing campaigns, generate single-use coupon codes and time-based promotion codes, set up localized customer communications, analyze customer acquisition and customer retention
metrics, and manage chargebacks.
Unlike many online billing platform solutions, Vindicia's product offers a payment gateway
, thus negating the need to purchase a separate gateway offering from another vendor. Their product also has a built-in global sales tax engine which can calculate sales tax
, VAT
, and GST
. As part of their recurring billing product, their offerings include built in best practices customized to the client on issues such as customer retention, customer acquisition, and increasing online revenue and the average customer lifetime value
.
The CashBox platform handles subscriptions, microtransactions, freemium
and hybrid subscription business model
s and allows users to scale internationally by adding additional currencies quickly. In October 2011, Mind Candy enabled 4 new currencies - AUD, Euros, CA & NZD -- overnight to its Moshi Monsters online game, which uses the CashBox
platform.
CashBox StoreFront integrates CashBox's built-in global sales tax engine. Users may view and update personal and payment information directly from CashBox StoreFront and customer support personnel may look up customer and order information, and grant credits and refunds from CashBox StoreFront.
rate. ChargeGuard customers see a dramatic reduction in the number of chargebacks in addition to the significant amount of revenue recovered from the chargebacks they fight, typically with a 60-85% win rate. Additionally, they were able to leverage their products and their best practices methodologies to reduce one of their customer's chargeback rate from 5% initially to less than 0.5% in just a few months.
, digital content
, and software. Their customers include Symantec
, Cisco
, Boxee
, Blizzard Entertainment
, Magmic
(Texas Holdem' King Live), deviantART
, Intuit, Mind Candy
(Moshi Monsters
), SubaGames, TransUnion Interactive, Wicked Interactive, Online Buddies (manhunt.net), Fandango
, Bloomberg
, CyberDefender
, Mingle
(iChurch.com), Avid Life (HotorNot.com
, AshleyMadison.com
, CougarLife.com, EstablishedMen.com), Next Issue Media (publishing platform created by a consortium of the biggest publishers - Condé Nast
, Hearst
, News Corp
, Time Inc.
.), Atari
/Cryptic Studios
, IMVU
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
, SaaS
Software as a Service
Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...
marketing, billing and CRM platform company headquartered in Belmont, California
Belmont, California
Belmont is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. It is in the San Francisco Bay Area, located half-way down the San Francisco Peninsula between San Mateo and San Carlos. It was originally part of the Rancho de las Pulgas, for which one of its main roads, the Alameda de las Pulgas,...
, USA that provides digital merchants with an online recurring billing and subscription management platform. Vindicia works with digital leaders selling subscriptions or digital goods such as virtual currency
Virtual currency
Virtual currency is used to purchase virtual goods within a variety of online communities; which include social networking websites, virtual worlds and online gaming sites....
and virtual goods. Vindicia is a PCI Level 1 SSAE-16 (formerly SAS 70 Type II) audited company. In addition to their online recurring billing and one-time payments platform, they offer marketing automation, chargeback
Chargeback
A chargeback is the return of funds to a consumer, forcibly initiated by the consumer's issuing bank. Specifically, it is the reversal of a prior outbound transfer of funds from a consumer's bank account, line of credit, or credit card....
management, fraud screening, and built-in best practices for customer retention
Customer retention
Customer Retention is the activity that a selling organization undertakes in order to reduce customer defections. Successful customer retention starts with the first contact an organisation has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship...
and customer acquisition
Customer acquisition management
Customer acquisition management is a term used to describe the methodologies and systems to manage customer prospects and inquiries, generally generated by a variety of marketing techniques. It can be considered the connectivity between advertising and customer relationship management...
strategies around billing, marketing, CRM, business models, and operations that are customized for customers.
Origins
Vindicia was founded in late 2003 by eMusicEMusic
eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. It is headquartered in New York City with an office in London and owned by Dimensional Associates. As of September 2008 eMusic has over 400,000 subscribers....
cofounder Gene Hoffman, former eMusic
EMusic
eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. It is headquartered in New York City with an office in London and owned by Dimensional Associates. As of September 2008 eMusic has over 400,000 subscribers....
VP of Technology Brett Thomas, and Mark Elrod as a company specializing in software as a service
Software as a Service
Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...
(SaaS) marketing, billing and CRM platform.
On November 1, 2010, Vindicia announced raising $20 Million in a Series E financing round with FTV Capital leading the funding and in partnership with existing investors Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI).
Current status
Vindicia is headquartered in Belmont, CaliforniaBelmont, California
Belmont is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. It is in the San Francisco Bay Area, located half-way down the San Francisco Peninsula between San Mateo and San Carlos. It was originally part of the Rancho de las Pulgas, for which one of its main roads, the Alameda de las Pulgas,...
. It is a privately held, venture-backed company
Venture capital financing
Venture capital financing is a type of financing by venture capital: the type of private equity capital is provided as seed funding to early-stage, high-potential, growth companies and more often after the seed funding round as growth funding round in the interest of generating a return through an...
.
CashBox
CashBox is designed with the underlying premise that billing and fraud management are critical to drive the fundamentals of profitability. With CashBox, online merchants are able to create and grow predictable revenueRevenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
streams while lowering ongoing customer acquisition costs. CashBox addresses the needs of online merchants of any size and scale who offer intangible goods and services across a wide range of industries.
Vindicia's CashBox subscription billing and one-time transactions billing platform consists of a billing system where merchants can define billing plans, issue refunds, create payment retry schedules. CashBox also functions as a CRM
CRM
- Sales and marketing :* Customer relationship management, processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers* cause-related marketing, a type of marketing* Courtesy reply mail, a type of business mail- Companies and institutions :...
tool and marketing automation
Marketing Automation
The name given to software platforms designed for marketing departments and organizations to automate repetitive tasks is Marketing Automation. Marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes which are then...
and enterprise marketing management
Enterprise marketing management
Enterprise Marketing Management defines a category of software used by marketing operations to manage their end-to-end internal processes. EMM is subset of Marketing Technologies which consists of a total of 3 key technology types that allow for corporations and customers to participate in a...
platform, where merchants can track marketing campaigns, generate single-use coupon codes and time-based promotion codes, set up localized customer communications, analyze customer acquisition and customer retention
Customer retention
Customer Retention is the activity that a selling organization undertakes in order to reduce customer defections. Successful customer retention starts with the first contact an organisation has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship...
metrics, and manage chargebacks.
Unlike many online billing platform solutions, Vindicia's product offers a payment gateway
Payment gateway
A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets...
, thus negating the need to purchase a separate gateway offering from another vendor. Their product also has a built-in global sales tax engine which can calculate sales tax
Sales tax
A sales tax is a tax, usually paid by the consumer at the point of purchase, itemized separately from the base price, for certain goods and services. The tax amount is usually calculated by applying a percentage rate to the taxable price of a sale....
, VAT
Vat
Vat or VAT may refer to:* A type of container such as a barrel, storage tank, or tub, often constructed of welded sheet stainless steel, and used for holding, storing, and processing liquids such as milk, wine, and beer...
, and GST
GST
-Computing:* Generalised suffix tree, a tree-like data structure* GNOME System Tools, part of the GNOME desktop environment* GNU Smalltalk, an implementation of the Smalltalk language* GST Computer Systems, a group of companies based in Cambridge, England...
. As part of their recurring billing product, their offerings include built in best practices customized to the client on issues such as customer retention, customer acquisition, and increasing online revenue and the average customer lifetime value
Customer lifetime value
-Definition of Customer Lifetime Value:In marketing, customer lifetime value , lifetime customer value , or lifetime value is the net present value of the cash flows attributed to the relationship with a customer...
.
The CashBox platform handles subscriptions, microtransactions, freemium
Freemium
Freemium is a business model that works by offering a product or service free of charge while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services...
and hybrid subscription business model
Subscription business model
The subscription business model is a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service. The model was pioneered by magazines and newspapers, but is now used by many businesses and websites....
s and allows users to scale internationally by adding additional currencies quickly. In October 2011, Mind Candy enabled 4 new currencies - AUD, Euros, CA & NZD -- overnight to its Moshi Monsters online game, which uses the CashBox
Cashbox
Cashbox can mean:*A box for keeping cash in; a safe or cash register*CashBox is a SaaS Marketing, Billing, Ecommerce and marketing automation / CRM solution used by digital leaders -- like Atari, Blizzard, Bloomberg, Cisco, Cryptic, Intuit, Magmic , Mind Candy , Outspark, Peanut Labs, Symantec and...
platform.
CashBox StoreFront
CashBox StoreFront is a storefront add-on to the CashBox recurring billing, marketing and CRM platform that enables users to manage orders, business models and offers, inventory management of a virtual items catalog via the CashBox token engine, and coupon payments. CashBox StoreFront includes checkout and shopping cart facilities and can handle different payment methods including credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Incomm pre-paid cards and electronic checks and incorporates client-side validation logic. CashBox StoreFront integrates Vindicia's Hosted Order Automation to offload PCI compliance to Vindicia.CashBox StoreFront integrates CashBox's built-in global sales tax engine. Users may view and update personal and payment information directly from CashBox StoreFront and customer support personnel may look up customer and order information, and grant credits and refunds from CashBox StoreFront.
ChargeGuard
Vindicia's ChargeGuard service is used by digital merchants to minimize both false positives and a merchant's chargebackChargeback
A chargeback is the return of funds to a consumer, forcibly initiated by the consumer's issuing bank. Specifically, it is the reversal of a prior outbound transfer of funds from a consumer's bank account, line of credit, or credit card....
rate. ChargeGuard customers see a dramatic reduction in the number of chargebacks in addition to the significant amount of revenue recovered from the chargebacks they fight, typically with a 60-85% win rate. Additionally, they were able to leverage their products and their best practices methodologies to reduce one of their customer's chargeback rate from 5% initially to less than 0.5% in just a few months.
Customers
Vindicia's CashBox solutions customers are in a number of industries such as gaming, datingOnline dating service
Online dating or Internet dating is a dating system which allows individuals, couples and groups to make contact and communicate with each other over the Internet, usually with the objective of developing a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship...
, digital content
Web content
Web content is the textual, visual or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, videos and animations....
, and software. Their customers include Symantec
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
, Cisco
Cisco
Cisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore...
, Boxee
BOXEE
Boxee is a cross-platform freeware HTPC software application with a 10-foot user interface and social networking features designed for the living-room TV...
, Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
, Magmic
Magmic
Magmic Inc. is an Ottawa-based developer and publisher of mobile entertainment and lifestyle software. Founded in 2002, Magmic produces content based on both original and licensed intellectual property for a variety of handset models, including Java ME, BREW, Sidekick, Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone,...
(Texas Holdem' King Live), deviantART
DeviantArt
deviantART is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others. deviantArt, Inc...
, Intuit, Mind Candy
Mind Candy
Mind Candy is a British entertainment company, formed in 2003 by UK internet entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith, and based in Shoreditch, London, England...
(Moshi Monsters
Moshi Monsters
Moshi Monsters is a social networking online game and virtual pet site targeted at children aged 7 to 12. The player adopts and cares for a pet monster, solving puzzles which lead to rewards called rox; these can be used as currency to buy items for the adopted monster, such as clothing, food, and...
), SubaGames, TransUnion Interactive, Wicked Interactive, Online Buddies (manhunt.net), Fandango
Fandango
Fandango is a lively couple's dance, usually in triple metre, traditionally accompanied by guitars and castanets or hand-clapping . Fandango can both be sung and danced. Sung fandango is usually bipartite: it has an instrumental introduction followed by "variaciones"...
, Bloomberg
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...
, CyberDefender
CyberDefender
CyberDefender Corp is a remote computer service company based in Los Angeles, California that makes the CyberDefender software. The software includes an internet security suite and a registry cleaner...
, Mingle
Mingle
Mingle is a proprietary project management and collaboration platform that is built by ThoughtWorks Studios, the software division of ThoughtWorks.Mingle was introduced at JavaOne in 2007 as the first commercial application that runs on JRuby...
(iChurch.com), Avid Life (HotorNot.com
Hot or Not
Hot or Not is a rating site that allows users to rate the attractiveness of photos submitted voluntarily by others. The site also offers a match making engine called 'Meet Me' and an extended profile feature called 'HOTLISTS'. It is owned by Avid Life Media....
, AshleyMadison.com
Ashley Madison
Ashley Madison is an online dating service and social network service marketed primarily to people who are already in a relationship. The website was launched in 2001....
, CougarLife.com, EstablishedMen.com), Next Issue Media (publishing platform created by a consortium of the biggest publishers - Condé Nast
Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
, Hearst
Hearst
Hearst may refer to:People* Amanda Hearst* Garrison Hearst, NFL running back* George Hearst* George Randolph Hearst, Jr.* Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWE professional wrestler* John Randolph Hearst* Lydia Hearst-Shaw* Michael Hearst* Millicent Hearst...
, News Corp
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
, Time Inc.
Time Inc.
Time Inc. is a subsidiary of the media conglomerate Time Warner, the company formed by the 1990 merger of the original Time Inc. and Warner Communications. It publishes 130 magazines, most notably its namesake, Time...
.), Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
/Cryptic Studios
Cryptic Studios
Cryptic Studios, a wholly owned Perfect World subsidiary, is a small American massively multiplayer online role-playing game developer headquartered in Los Gatos, California.-History:...
, IMVU
IMVU
IMVU, Inc. is an online social entertainment destination in which members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create, and play games created by Fydor Guthenschlag. IMVU has over 50 million registered users, 10 million unique visitors per month and three million monthly active users...
External links
- Vindicia Main Website
- Vindicia Customers
- Vindicia Subscription Billing
- Vindicia Webinars
- Vindicia Best Practices
See also
- Software as a ServiceSaasSAAS is an abbreviation for* Social Accountability Accreditation Services* Software as a service * Student Awards Agency for Scotland* Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences* South Australian Ambulance Service...
- Web applicationWeb applicationA web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...
- CRMCRM- Sales and marketing :* Customer relationship management, processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers* cause-related marketing, a type of marketing* Courtesy reply mail, a type of business mail- Companies and institutions :...
- Customer Acquisition ManagementCustomer acquisition managementCustomer acquisition management is a term used to describe the methodologies and systems to manage customer prospects and inquiries, generally generated by a variety of marketing techniques. It can be considered the connectivity between advertising and customer relationship management...
- Marketing IntelligenceMarketing IntelligenceMarketing Intelligence is the information relevant to a company’s markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development metrics. Marketing intelligence is...
- Business IntelligenceBusiness intelligenceBusiness intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
- Marketing AutomationMarketing AutomationThe name given to software platforms designed for marketing departments and organizations to automate repetitive tasks is Marketing Automation. Marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes which are then...
- Enterprise Marketing ManagementEnterprise marketing managementEnterprise Marketing Management defines a category of software used by marketing operations to manage their end-to-end internal processes. EMM is subset of Marketing Technologies which consists of a total of 3 key technology types that allow for corporations and customers to participate in a...
- Payment service providerPayment Service ProviderA payment service provider offers merchants online services for accepting electronic payments by a variety of payment methods including credit card, bank-based payments such as direct debit, bank transfer, and real-time bank transfer based on online banking...