Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Datanomic

‘Dirty data’ is costing companies dear.

Research from Price-waterhouseCoopers suggests that up to three-quarters of companies have experienced costs due to inaccurate, inconsistent and missing data.

One in three companies have had to delay implementing IT systems because of quality problems with the source data.

Datanomic, which has entered the One to Watch and Growth & Expansion categories of the Awards, is already eliminating these problems for its customers.

A typical use of its data quality, data audit and data cleansing software is to standardise data entered into individual contact databases by all the members of a sales team, so that they can be merged into a single database for more effective and cost-efficient marketing.

Another example is enabling a company to compare two separate databases, so that it doesn’t annoy existing customers with a mailing intended for new prospects.

Datanomic is unique in that it can handle any type of data, not just postal information, and that it can be run and customised directly by in-house staff.

Datanomic is working directly with major customers in the financial services and consultancy sector, but is also building a reseller and partner channel to extend its reach to other market sectors.

Its professional services team offers training and support to customers and partners.

Based in Cambridge, UK, Datanomic was spun out from Quillion Group by Dr Richard Marsh and Added Value Capital Partners in May 2001.

Dr Marsh holds a PhD in Computer Science from Cambridge University where he specialised in knowledge management techniques, and was previously product director at Quillion where the Datanomic software was first developed and marketed.

NEW ENTRY

ASL

Adaptive Screening Limited, a Generics spin-out which has entered the Innovation: One to Watch category of the Awards, is the pharmaceutical industry’s first miniaturised drug-profiling company.

ASL intends to become the market leader in the supply of hardware, software and reagent tools that address the undisputed bottlenecks that exist at the target validation and hit-to-lead development stages of drug discovery.

The ASL drug-profiling platform represents a significant technological advance in the integration of microsystems technology with proteomics, cellomics, and bio-informatics.

Customers that adopt the platform will be empowered to develop drug candidates with a stronger chemical and biological pedigree that have a higher probability of success in clinical trials.

ASL represents an attractive solution to the industry problem of declining drug profitability that is the legacy of the high attrition-rate (<90 per cent) of drug candidates discovered during the tenancy of the high-throughput screening paradigm.

ASL was created to combine and exploit the intellectual property and technical expertise of Professor Tony Cass of Imperial College, Professor Jon Cooper of the University of Glasgow and the drug discovery/start up expertise of Dr Darrin Disley, formerly of Generics Group AG.

ASL is in the process of raising $10m in private-equity finance, which is expected to be its only funding round ahead of achieving cash breakeven in 2004.

Thus far the company has raised seed funding of approximately $750k. It is intended that the company will be qualified to undertake an IPO or trade sale within three years of this funding round.

NEW ENTRY

ChocExpress Ltd

One of the tastiest entries has come from ChocExpress Ltd, the Royston company, which is tilting for honours in three categories - Innovation, Growth & Expansion and Private Company of the Year.

The company reports that turnover in the year to the end of June doubled to exceed £5m.

Privately funded, the company has completed a factory extension to expand production capabilities by 30 per cent. Major investment is being made in new staff and computer systems. The company now employs around 100 staff.

ChocExpress markets itself as the UK’s leading delivered chocolate gift company. It provides a year-round service enabling individuals and companies to send chocolate gifts anywhere in the UK and to many overseas destinations.

ChocExpress was set up in 1994 by Peter Harris and Angus Thirwell, who successfully built up their original company, Geneiva Chocolates Ltd.

NEW ENTRY

Linx Printing

LINX Printing Technologies in St Ives has entered the Growth & Expansion category of the Awards.

Chairman Michael Moore says Linx entered the new financial year “a substantially larger company than it had been 12 months earlier.”

The company’s efforts in the new fiscal year had been focused on improving and integrating the activities of the Group while maintaining the organic growth within each of Linx’s businesses.

Total revenues last year increased 26 per cent to £47.6m, of which 8 per cent results from organic growth and 28 per cent from the full year effects of the Linx Asia and Linx Xymark acquisitions.

Operating profits before interest charges and amortisation of goodwill increased by 33 per cent, including an exceptional first half from Xymark where profits were materially higher than originally expected (by £0.4m). Profit before tax increased 19 per cent to £5.2m.

Linx believes its huge increase in sales is down to having its best ever range of products in traditional ink jet and laser markets.

NEW ENTRY

Imerge

Based in Cambridge and now employing over 60 people, Imerge - another strong entrant in the ‘Innovation - One to Watch’ category - develops Next Generation Home Media Appliance Technology (XiVA) for licensing and finished-product sales.

XiVA powers the next generation of hard disk-based media appliances and blends hard disk technology, advanced software design and embedded internet connectivity to provide exciting new features and profitable new revenue streams.

Audio, video, text, graphics and all forms of streaming media are brought to life through a wealth of interactive user interface options.

Powerful personalised software accesses online content like never before.

Products powered by XiVA include ‘SoundServer’, Imerge’s revolutionary and highly successful multi-room audio player, plus a series of products from leading licensee brands.

Imerge’s most successful product is the S1000 single room SoundServer, which sits at the heart of a home entertainment system.

A 40GB hard disk provides storage for up to 700 hours of music in MP3 format, in one convenient device and played back through conventional music systems.

The SoundServer is convenient and easy to operate with an all new TV interface, which enables the user to record or play music and even edit information in their music database, using the remote control and in the comfort of their armchair.

CDs are recorded onto the hard disk in faster than real time and, utilising the embedded internet functionality of XiVA software, the SoundServer automatically connects to the CDDB Internet site for track listing information.

The S1000 enables users to conveniently store and organise their entire music collections.

Unlike CD jukeboxes, any music track can be found and played instantly. CDs can therefore be freed up to be used elsewhere, such as in the car.