• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 10, 2009

Sales analytics firm TouchCommerce has raised $10 million from new investor Sierra Ventures, along with existing investors Emergence Capital, Hudson Ventures, Dolphin Equity and Partech International.

A self-described "pay for performance online conversion" specialist, TouchCommerce provides analytics to e-commerce sites in an effort to identify visitors that are most likely to make purchases, and then arranges for sales agents to target them with instant messaging to prevent so-called "shopping cart abandonment."

We "allow our clients to engage their customers more effectively online and make their websites a better place to purchase and obtain support," according to TouchCommerce's CEO Bernard Louvat.

Presently, the company's clients reside in the fields of retail, cable, satellite and finance. They include Sprint, AT&T, Virgin Media and Wyndham Hotels.

Founded in 1999, TouchCommerce has expanded from its Agoura Hills, Calif. headquarters to various markets worldwide. Late last year, the company changed its name from InQ to TouchCommerce.

"In the first half of our company's 9-year history, what we did within the e-commerce ecosystem related more to engaging and cross selling online consumers when they were on the confirmation page of their transaction," Christophe Cremault, senior vice president of marketing at TouchCommerce, said at the time.

"But," he added, "for the last five years our company has touched targeted website visitors at the right time and the right place during their online shopping experience and assisted them with product selection and completion of their purchases online."