ANN ARBOR – Rapidly growing LLamasoft, a supply chain software company, announced Tuesday that it has closed a $50 million Series B financing round with affiliates of Goldman, Sachs & Co.  Co-Founder Toby Brzoznowski said the money will be used to accelerate the development “of disruptive new technologies” that could now be released early next year.

Brzoznowski said some of the financing, which closed Monday, could also be used to acquire one or two companies that could help LLamasoft grow even faster than it could organically. An European acquisition could close within the next several weeks.

The investment is one of the largest ever made in a Michigan technology company, eclipsed only by the $59.5 million raised by ProNAi Therapeutics, a Plymouth Township-based drug company, that went public this year.

“We’re expanding our analytics platform and bringing some of these products more rapidly to market,” he said in an interview Monday night. “A number of these platforms have been in prototype for the last few months. We’ve been capital constrained. Without the financing, it might have taken six to nine months to bring them to market. Now we can accelerate the time frame to three or four months.’

LLamasoft provides supply chain design, analytics and planning solutions to many of the world’s largest companies.  In each of the last two years, LLamasoft has ranked as the fastest-growing supply chain software company in the exclusive Deloitte Fast 500 list of North American technology companies.

Brzoznowski said LLamasoft will be hiring even more rapidly that it did over the past two years when LLamasoft filled some 75 positions each year. Many of the new jobs – product development, R&D, sales support, customer relations – will be filled in Ann Arbor, he said. The company currently employs 270.

“We have been impressed by the number and scale of global organizations that have successfully deployed LLamasoft to date, particularly given the very limited use of outside capital,” said Jason Kreuziger, Vice President in the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs.  “We are excited to partner with Don, Toby and the entire team as we work together to leverage this investment to further serve and expand this group of customers.”

Additional financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Goldman Sachs was advised by Fenwick & West LLP.  LLamasoft was advised by DLA Piper LLP (US).

For more information, click on http://www.llamasoft.com/

LLamasoftlogo