Zygon Ltd, a British software start-up, launched its first products yesterday, fresh from a 4m pound ($6.4m) venture capital investment from Intel Corp and European VC firm 3i. Zygon makes middleware which allows firms to intelligently stream product data from a centralized database onto various media, in a dynamic fashion. The firm is initially targeting companies that sell products from paper catalogues, CD-ROMs and web sites.
After an implementation of around five months to clean and prepare product data and install the software, Zygon acts as a conduit to filter appropriate information onto the different output products. For example, an audiovisual file of a product at work would be used on a web site or CD, but not a mail-shot, whereas a web site would not need indexing information or page numbers. The program connects to different media – html pages or QuarkXpress documents for example – via software ‘cartridges’ or adapters that convert data. Three cartridges are currently available, more to come, and custom design takes about six weeks.
CEO James Dobree, drafted in to head up the start-up board, points to the unusual action of VC firms pumping money into pre-revenue UK firms as indicative of how they could capture their chosen vertical. Competitors are likely to be the big printing houses like Pindar in the UK and Strebo in Denmark.
