I love when companies I’m an investor in use acquisitions to build out their product line.  In April Rally Software did one when they acquired AgileZen; yesterday they announced that Rally Software has acquired the ScrumAway iPhone app from Blue Hole Software.

Rally has re-released the product (previous a $15 download) as a free product called Rally for the iPhone that tightly integrates with the Rally SaaS-based Agile software lifecycle environment.  If you are a Rally customer, this is a no-brainer app for you; if you aren’t a Rally customer but are an Agile development shop that also has a bunch of iPhone users, take a look at Rally’s products.

And – if you are an entrepreneur running a company that you think fits with any of the companies I’m an investor in, don’t ever hesitate to drop me an email to explore things.

How could you not fall in love with a company named AgileZen?  Today, Rally Software – a company I’ve been an investor in since 2003 – announced that they have acquired AgileZen.  If you are an Agile software development shop, or follow ALM, Rally just added Kanban to the mix.

This is the second acquisition Rally has made – the other was 6th Sense Analytics which they acquired at the beginning of 2009.  If you follow this blog, you know that I’m a big fan of having established companies I’m an investor in buy smaller companies to help build out their product road map.  I’m explicitly not a fan of rollups – I’ve had my share of investments in rollups that didn’t work.  But I love targeted acquisitions that build out specific capabilities on an established company’s roadmap or add key people to the team.  If you are looking for recent examples of this in my world, two others are NewsGator’s acquisition of Tomoye or Zynga’s acquisition of Serious Business. 

Both companies have detailed blog posts about the deal – Welcome AgileZen! and We’ve joined Rally Software.  If you are a company operating in one of our themes, don’t ever hesitate to reach out to me if you think you might fit with a company we’ve already invested in – you never know where the conversation might lead.

And congrats to both Rally and AgileZen – I’m excited for you guys.

I’ve watched (and participated) with excitement as Rally Software has helped move the notion of agile software development into the mainstream over the past few years.  In addition to having the leading Agile application lifecycle management solutions, they are tireless educators and evangelizers for all things Agile.  Today, over 1500 companies are doing over 33,000 projects using Rally’s SaaS-based ALM software.

Rally has just announced their Agile Success Tours.  The first one is in Denver on 3/18/09 followed by similar events in LA on 3/26/09 and New York City on 4/02/09.  They are free, but you have to register for them.

Each event is a half-day and is aimed at software and IT executives and managers who are being asked to deliver software faster and with fewer defects.   The event will focus on how development teams can adopt Agile practices to achieve the real and measurable results that today’s economic climate demands: faster time-to-market, improved productivity, and fewer defects.

In addition, Rally has recently launched an Agile Blog that is packed with information, advice, and suggestions about Agile and how to implement it in your organization.

If you aren’t familiar with Rally or Agile, take a quick look at their five minute overview or try out the free version of Rally’s Community Edition for up to 10 users.  Come join the Agile movement.