By providing companies with niche software via the Internet cloud, a group of NY startups is expanding, according to Xconomy. Technology companies are leveraging the lower cost of offering Web-based software in order to reel in new business customers. GramercyOne recently closed $14.5 million in a recent funding round, as the capital is intended for technology developments and new hires. GramercyOne, as well as other cloud-based software providers such as Profitably and Erply, are expanding their businesses by offering flexibility to their clients. 
Erply
, another provider of point-of-sale software and inventory management via the cloud, is also burgeoning. The company, whose subsidiary Point of Sale is based in NY, raised $2 million in March 2010 from a multitude of investors. “People do not like to be 100 percent Web-dependent at the register.” Robert Jacob, the US vice president of sales with Point of Sales, told Xconomy. “[For some] it is too big of a risk to have registers go down for 20 minutes.” Erply has released a Windows-based application that lets merchants operate sans an Internet connection and then update sales and inventory when a connection is reestablished, in addition to providing software from the cloud.