Cognition wins $1 million in financing

Milwaukee-based Cognition, Inc., which builds and provides on-demand network laboratories for IT professionals, has received more than $1 million in financing from two area firms.
The funds are coming from divergent sources – $1 million from Payne & Dolan, a 70-year-old road and bridge builder based in Waukesha, and more than $200,000 in services and infrastructure from Capital Data of Milwaukee, a computer-leasing firm.
The market for such network laboratories is large, says Todd Borghesani, CEO of Cognition. At present, there are more than 5 million information technology (IT) professionals in the US, and their ranks are growing by nearly 20% per year.
Borghesani said Cognition’s network laboratories permit users to experiment with problem-solving in a live network, delivered across the Internet via browser. By using Cognition’s data center infrastructure, a systems engineer has portable access to various network configurations to test and solve problems.
“Even when traveling or working from home, a systems engineer can log on via a browser and grasp a new network configuration process by working on a remote and isolated network,” said Borghesani. “The network she’s working on is live – but safe, since it’s not her client’s or employer’s production network. She’s now advanced her level of field expertise.”
The training provided by Cognition can give IT professional skills more in demand, said Paula Boyum, vice president for workforce development at Bellevue Community College, Bellevue, Wash. “Increasingly, our corporate clients want IT professionals with ‘hands-on’ expertise,” Boyum said. “While the classroom is a valuable forum for educating these individuals, an automated network laboratory that delivers networks ‘on-demand’ is a new tool that can accelerate their level of operational knowledge.”
Payne & Dolan’s president Kurt Bechtold said his firm was impressed with Cognition. “We studied the marketplace, the competitive offerings and the abilities of the Cognition management team,” said Bechtold. “Respectively, we saw continued market growth in serving the needs of the IT sector, competitive superiority, and a resilient and creative management team.”
“In today’s networked economy, Cognition’s tools will have deep value across several industry sectors,” says Paul Eberle, president of Capital Data Inc.
Borghesani adds, “As a Milwaukee-based company, we are proud to have these two well-established Midwestern companies believe in us and our mission. We are fortunate to have such knowledgeable strategic advisors and investors.”
Jeff Gross, an investment banker at VM Equity, Chicago, says, “Cognition was able to raise a substantial amount of first-round capital in Milwaukee despite the challenges of the economic and Internet fallout, and that’s impressive.”
Cognition (www.cognitioninc.com) is located at 310 E. Buffalo St. in Milwaukee’s Third Ward.
Aug. 3, 2001 Small Business Times, Milwaukee