May 05--SMS Assist, a Chicago-based software company with about 400 local workers, on Tuesday announced $45 million in new financing from a New York venture capital firm.
Chicago's Pritzker Group has already invested $62 million in the property management company, whose clients include Family Dollar, CBRE and O'Reilly Automotive. Pritzker invested $17 million in SMS Assist in 2011 and another $45 million in 2013.
SMS Assist's new investor is Insight Venture Partners of New York. Its other holdings include: SkinnyCorp, the parent of Chicago-based T-shirt seller Threadless, and crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. Its past investments include Football Fanatics, an online seller of licensed sports merchandise. Insight, founded in 1995, has raised more than $10 billion and invested in more than 200 software, e-commerce, Internet and data services companies worldwide.
SMS Assist said the investment from Insight Venture will help it enter new markets. SMS manages a network of more than 20,000 subcontractors that provide maintenance services to more than 90,000 client locations.
byerak@tribpub.com
