|
Orbiscom announced on Monday that it had secured the money from HgCapital, a provider of capital to the European equity market. Formerly known as Mercury Private Equity, the company has invested in several IT and Internet companies recently including Burns eCommerce Solution, an e-payment solutions business.
According to Orbiscom, this latest deal places a USD144.5 million value on the business and will give the company sufficient funds through to profitability, which Orbiscom expects to reach in 2003. This valuation is significantly less than the USD250 million valuation put on the company in October 2000, when investor ITG sold a five percent stake in Orbiscom for around USD12 million.
Orbiscom stressed that despite the slowdown in technology funding, it had managed to raise the entire amount it had been seeking, and that the funds were raised in just four months.
"We expected the process to be difficult and while the process was more difficult than if we had tried to do it last year, when we approached five equity houses they all wanted to take the full round of funding," an Orbiscom spokesperson told ElectricNews.Net.
In February, 2000, Orbiscom raised USD15 million, with AIB taking a 5.1 percent stake in the company.
According to Graham O'Donnell, Orbiscom's group chief executive officer, the funding will be used to deliver on its growth plans and support its 50 issued or pending patents.
"This funding will allow us to continue our growth campaign, while assuring our clients and prospects that we have the technical, intellectual property and financial strength to serve major partners," commented O'Donnell. "Not only are we the leader in this space, but we also have the resources to make solid progress toward profitability."
HgCapital said that it had invested in Orbiscom because authenticating and securing on-line payments was "the final piece of the jigsaw for e-commerce".
"Orbiscom's controlled payment technology has proven to be extremely effective in doing this and has the potential to become a global standard," said Ian Armitage, director of HgCapital. Armitage also cited Orbiscom's two years of live transaction experience, its recent cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft and strong client relationships in the US and Europe.
Founded in early 1998 by professionals from the financial services, software and Internet industries, Orbiscom has created technology that helps credit card companies, e-merchants, consumers and businesses to make secure credit card transactions on-line and over wireless devices. The company is a pioneer in the area of controlled payment number technology; this lets customers generate "disposable" credit card numbers for purchases, enabling better security for on-line shopping.
Orbiscom has signed partner relationships with several leading card issuers and banks including MBNA, First Data, Discover and AIB, and according to the company its technology is available to more than 500 million credit cardholders world-wide.
In May of this year, the company signed a 15 year cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft that will see Orbiscom license Microsoft CPN technologies. Microsoft will also licence Orbiscom's CPN range of products and services.
According to the Orbiscom spokesperson, the company also expects to announce further "major" deals with companies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region within the next month.
Orbiscom employs 130 people in six offices around the world. The company does not anticipate adding significantly to its number of staff in the near future.
Orbiscom can be found at http://www.orbiscom.com.
|
