City Chap

BullGuard gets US$5 million Funding

citychap — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:59:37 +0000

Londion-based computer security company BullGuard has received US$5 million (£3.4 million) from international venture capital firm DFJ ePlanet Ventures. The company has said it plans to use the funding to expand into Germany as well as hiring a new channel sales director for the UK.

More on this story from GrowthBusiness.co.uk

Tagged: bullguard, DFJ ePlanet Ventures, funding, security

SCOTTY Group Beaming Up

citychap — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:03:00 +0000

SCOTTY Group has announced it has won €1 million (£830,000) of new orders.

The AIM-quoted company – which turned a £765,000 loss into £977,000 pre-tax profits in the year to June, on turnover up 42 per cent to £6.8 million – says latest orders include five maritime ‘Telemed’ packages for an onboard hospital for the German Navy, aircraft tracking kit for the German Army and emergency response equipment for the Chinese national railways.

SCOTTY shares, which have fallen sharply from their 103.75p June peak, now trade at 49p, valuing the company at £9.9 million.

Tagged: AIM, German navy, SCOTTY Group, telemed

Illumix Software Expands to North-east

citychap — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:26:03 +0000

News that Illumix has received £1.5 million in venture capital funding in order to set up a technical centre in the North-east of England.

The company’s technology aims to help large corporations with complex IT infrastructures to more accurately align IT resources with business requirements.

Chief technology officer Andrew Parker said: In many cases, businesses are supporting expensive legacy IT platforms that could be greatly optimised in terms of performance and operating costs.’

Tagged: Illumix Software, IT infrastructure, legacy IT platforms, venture capital funding

IT Budget Crunch

citychap — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:58:10 +0000

A new report from Datamonitor says that Technology vendors could shortly find themselves up against it, with IT budget growth expected to slow in 2009.

Datamonitor based their report on a survey of 8,000 global IT ‘decision-makers’. 37 per cent said that they were expecting to see their IT budget increase in 2009. Half stated that they expect to their budget to stay the same in 2009.

The exception, however, was the healthcare sector, where the majority of healthcare industry respondents (57 per cent) said they plan to expand their IT expenditure in 2009.

Tagged: IT budgets, it decision makers, it hardware

Sight and Sound Technology BIMBO

citychap — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:25:12 +0000

Sight and Sound Technology, a supplier of IT services for people who are blind or have learning difficulties, has completed a buy-in management buy-out (BIMBO). The deal was backed by Midlands-based venture capitalist Catapult Venture Managers, which invested £1.45 million, with senior debt from The Co-operative Bank.

Tagged: BIMBO, blind, buy-in management buy-out, Catapult Venture Managers, IT services, learning difficulties, Sight and Sound Technology, The Co-operative Bank, venture capitalist

Top 10 IT Companies in the Fortune 500

citychap — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:34:21 +0000

Here’s a list of the top ten IT focused companies* in the annual Fortune 500 list. Rankings are based on 2007 total revenues.

Hewlett-Packard -
$104.3 bn
IBM -
$98.8 bn
Dell -
$61.1bn
Microsoft -
$51.1bn
Fujitsu -
$46.7bn
NEC -
$40.4bn
Intel -
$38.3bn
Canon -
$38.1bn
Cisco Systems -
$34.9bn
Flextronics International –
$27.6bn

* Companies that derive the majority of their revenue from sales of information technology products or services. Excluded are technology product distributors, electronic component makers, telecoms companies and mobile phone manufacturers.

Further reading

Pentech Closes Software Fund

citychap — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:11:46 +0000

Glasgow-based venture capitalist Pentech has raised £45 million for its latest fund, which will invest in software companies in the UK and Ireland. The fund will back businesses with global potential in the enterprise software, telecoms software, internet and mobile sectors.

More info at Growth Business…

Plastic Logic secures extra funds

citychap — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:39:44 +0000

Plastic Logic, which develops plastic electronics for flexible displays and sensors, has raised a new round of $50 million (£25 million) in equity finance led by existing venture capital investors Oak Investment Partners and Amadeus Capital Partners. To date, the company has raised more than $200 million.

More details at Growth Business UK

What is AIM for?

citychap — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:37:30 +0000

An interesting discussion over at the Daily Telegraph, where Ben Bland has a pop at AIM and comes to the conclusion it’s a bit of a circus.

The London Stock Exchange has been struggling to shake off the suggestion by a leading US regulator that Aim is “like a casino” ever since those fateful words were uttered. After spending the best part of a year covering Aim, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is really more like a circus than a casino.

Some responses say he has missed the point of AIM or ignored its fundamental proposition. But I encourage you to check the article out

IS Solutions Files For Chapter26

citychap — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:07:50 +0000

AIM-listed website designer and developer IS Solutions has agreed to buy Surrey-based Chapter26, a content management systems specialist.

According to the GrowthBusiness website, the deal will cost IS Solutions more than £700,000 in cash and shares, rising to £1.2 million if financial targets are achieved by July 2009.