Prio Nets $25M Series F Round

Prio Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., recently raised $25 million in its Series F round of venture capital financing.

Investors in the round included Knight-Ridder Investment Co., American Express Travel Related Services, Softbank Technology Ventures IV LP, DataCard Corp. and other financial investors.

BancBoston Robertson Stephens acted as placement agent on the financing.

The company has now raised more than $48 million in venture financing. Prio, formerly SaveSmart Inc., raised $14 million in its previous venture financing from Cendant Corp., DataCard, Draper International, Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., NetSum Partners and Softbank.

“The reason investors were interested is the unique position of the company,” said Mark Sherman, a managing director at BancBoston. “They connect the online and offline worlds to strategically do Internet-based promotions and incentives.”

The company offers Internet-based promotions that provide consumers and merchants with paperless promotion materials. Target groups include restaurants, groceries and personal services.

“Marketers saw from Christmas ’98 that consumers will buy online, so they want to use traditional tricks to make it better,” Sherman said.

Prio did not return calls by press time.