End-to-End IT Services and Consultation for Tampa-Based Startup Until its Exit at $15 Million
Cyber Ventures
Since its inception Cyber Ventures partnered with DPL to retain an edge in its highly competitive industry. We are proud to have been part of their journey till their multi-million exit when acquired by Autobytel.
The Client
Cyber Ventures was an automobile purchase consulting and buying services provider. It was founded by Ian Bentley and William ‘Billy’ Ferriolo in 2003 in Tampa, Florida.
Through proprietary content and search marketing, Cyber Ventures and its sister company Autotropolis, Inc. generated and sold high-quality consumer automotive purchase requests. Together, they reported $10 million in annual revenues by 2009.
The Problem
As a start-up, Cyber Ventures knew that it had a lot of work ahead of it. Especially since it was new to the highly competitive market for online automotive leads and internet marketing in the US. Therefore, it needed a technology partner that could give it an edge over other organizations.
However, Cyber Ventures knew that it needed more than just the help of a software development company. It needed a lean, Agile technology partner that would ensure it kept up with the times, improved how business was done, and constantly introduced advances technologies.
That’s where DPL came in the picture.
The Solution
As Cyber Venture’s trusted technology partner, DPL provided end-to-end IT services. Through these, we delivered a dramatic increase in the start-up’s user clicks, conversions, and revenue.
Using technologies like ASP.NET, PHP, MYSQL, Proxy Server, Javascript, and MVC., we created a complete dealer management system, a lead selling platform, and high-performance marketing websites and portals.
Some of the features our innovators provided as part of these solutions include:
- High-performing, scalable websites optimized for search engine marketing
- Highly optimized portals to generate traffic from SEO
- High availability and high-performing websites running on web farms that use proxy servers for routing and load balancing traffic across web servers
- Multiple levels of caching technologies to deliver web response times of under 2 seconds
- Hardware based load balancers with sticky sessions to balance traffic between 8 web servers
- A cutting edge, highly customized Content Management System (CMS) to manage their websites and, in turn, empower marketers to create new campaigns in a few clicks
- Ability to transform thousands of records every 15 minutes to generate revenue reports for marketing teams
The Impact
The above numbers attracted the attention of Autobytel Inc. (currently part of AutoWeb). After seven years in 2010, Autobytel acquired both Cyber Ventures for $15 million.
“The addition of Cyber Ventures and Autotropolis gives Autobytel a significant competitive advantage by providing us with an additional major source of high-quality, ready-to-buy consumer purchase requests coming directly from our network of branded consumer websites,” said Jeffrey H. Coats, Autobytel’s former President and CEO.
