By Eric Lai, East Bay Business Times
April 18, 2005

InnerWorkings Inc., an Internet provider of training software with ties to both Pleasanton and Dublin, Ireland, said Monday that it received a first round of $8.8 million in venture capital funding from Benchmark Capital of London and Mohr, Davidow Ventures of Menlo Park.

That brings the total funding received by InnerWorkings to $11 million, according to CEO Francis McKeagney.

Founded in 2002, InnerWorkings offers a Web-based service that trains software developers working at large corporations on how to use Microsoft software products. The software is more effective than classroom lessons and even comparable training packages because it can correct errors in real-time and be targeted towards problems that developers will need to learn to solve in the near future, said McKeagney.

“There is a big gap between understanding programming concepts and writing the code,” he said.

InnerWorkings has 29 employees now, with 18 in its Dublin development office, and 11 in the United States, including 5 in its Pleasanton management headquarters. The company plans to add as many as twenty sales and marketing staff over the next several years in the United States, where most of its customers are.

InnerWorkings recently took a 3,000 square foot office in Hacienda Business Park, near where half of InnerWorkings top executives live.

InnerWorkings started its research and development center in Dublin because of the strong pool of Irish software developers, bolstered by techies coming from other parts of the European Union, said McKeagney, an Irish native.

And despite new-found wealth in Dublin that has brought a housing bubble similar to the Bay Area, salaries remain about 25 percent to 40 percent lower than the Bay Area, estimates McKeagney.

InnerWorkings had previously received funding from its founders as well as Enterprise Ireland, a government body.

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