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JasperSoft Inc. may have hired Nick Halsey to bring in new customers, but the veteran marketing executive has now supplied another connection to the startup: a venture firm to lead its new $12 million fourth round of funding.

Scale Venture Partners of Foster City, Calif., led the round. Scale managing director Sharon Wienbar sits on the board of directors of market intelligence software maker Biz360 Inc. of San Mateo, Calif., alongside Halsey. A different Scale managing director, Rory O'Driscoll, will join JasperSoft's board.

Also making a first-time investment was SAP Ventures, the investment arm of data management software giant SAP AG of Walldorf, Germany. Returning investors included DCM and Morgenthaler Ventures, both of Menlo Park, Calif., and Partech International of San Francisco.

JasperSoft provides an open-source version of business intelligence software, which combines operations reporting software with a decision-making engine. Like many open-source companies, JasperSoft's revenues come primarily from customer support, often delivered as a subscription service, and professional services, including customization and integration.

Originally founded as Panscopic Inc., the San Francisco-based company changed its name after it acquired Romanian startup JasperReports and Italian software developer iReport in 2005. Initial backer DCM and second-round backer Morgenthaler supplied $15 million by mid-2003, prior to the company's shift in focus.

Partech led an $8 million Series C round shortly after the rebranding, at a slight decrease in valuation. JasperSoft CEO Paul Doscher confirmed that the company's current valuation has risen from $23 million post-money at the time of the Series C round, but he would not provide further details.

Doscher pointed to SAP's success investing in open-source startups JBoss Inc., since acquired by Red Hat Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., and MySQL AB of Uppsala, Sweden, as key factors in the company's choice of the firm as a new investor.

Scale managing director Rory O'Driscoll said the deal is his firm's first full-fledged open-source investment. "Open-source is steadily growing and inexorable, but not explosive," he said. "It's grinding its way up the software stack, and we think the business intelligence market is one of the next areas where open-source will manifest itself."

He described JasperSoft's growth stage as "right in our sweet spot," in which some risks have been removed but plenty of room for growth remains.

JasperSoft is already receiving nearly 100,000 downloads per month, according to Doscher, with a relatively even distribution among the European, North American and Asia-Pacific markets. Doscher would not quantify how that has translated to revenue, although he said the company expects to be profitable within two years without additional outside investment.

He added that JasperSoft is planning continued worldwide expansion, primarily through its channel marketing program. Over the past year, the company has opened a second office in Ireland and struck deals with Salesforce.com Inc. of San Francisco, which will distribute JasperSoft's products through its AppExchange site, and MySQL.

O'Driscoll said he does not regard the current investment as a mezzanine round, and that additional investment is possible but not necessary for profitability.

Business Objects SA of Paris acquired another business intelligence company, CrystalDecisions Inc., for $820 million in late 2003. Publicly traded Cognos of Ottawa also operates in the sector.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC of Palo Alto, Calif., advised JasperSoft as the deal was completed. The investors looked to Cooley Godward Kronish LLP.

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