The Business Investors Group has invested in excess of £28 million since it was formed in September 1997. Below is a testimonial for one of the investments carried out by members of BiG.
Arjuna Technologies Ltd
Arjuna Technologies Ltd (ATL) is a world leading innovator in reliable, large-scale distributed systems and has built an international reputation for delivering mission-critical products to global software vendors. After four years of intensive development the Company has just launched its latest product, Arjuna Agility™ (Agility) targeted at the Cloud Computing market.
Industry analysts strongly agree that Cloud Computing is disrupting and reshaping the IT marketplace. Over the next two to five years analysts predict that there will be explosive growth in demand for Cloud Computing, and broad adoption of Cloud technologies – Merrill Lynch recently estimated that the Cloud Computing market opportunity will amount to $160BN by 2011. After four years of intensive product development, ATL now holds early-to-market advantage with a unique solution developed from first principles. ATL’s established and experienced management team is determined to fully exploit the Company’s strong initial position in this market by the implementation of a well conceived growth strategy centred on Agility.
The promise of Cloud Computing is both to improve the utilisation of existing computing resources and to allow resources to be delivered as a service by external suppliers. Agility tackles the fundamental issues constraining flexible exploitation of Cloud technologies, ensuring scalability, fault tolerance and the ability to continuously adapt to change. In so doing, Agility recognises the human barriers that restrict resource sharing such as risk, trust and control.
ATL is guided by a tightly knit management team which has been together since 1990 and has a track record of successfully exploiting innovation. Steve Caughey (MD) led Arjuna Solutions to acquisition in 2000 by Bluestone Software, for $13.5M and negotiated the trade acquisition of ATL technology IP to JBoss in 2005 for $4M.
In 2009 Steve approached the Business Investors Group with an investment opportunity. BiG members, led by Alan Clark and Alan Mordain, evaluated the company, its product and the market, and after a period of intensive negotiation agreed to an investment of £150,000 as part of £450,000 package obtained from a consortium which also included Barwell plc and EDNE. Alan Mordain of BiG and Alec Mackie of Barwell plc joined Mark I’Anson and John Carney as non-executive directors following the investment.
With this investment ATL have completed product development and are now working with ‘lighthouse’ customers to qualify the product and inform further development. With those customers in place ATL will be well-placed to market Agility to national and international enterprises, and to, once again, exploit their extensive network by developing partnerships with global software partners.
Steve Caughey says of BiG: “Even before the investment discussions were complete BiG members were actively supporting and assisting the company by exploiting their regional connections. We found dealing with BiG to be straightforward and uncomplicated. They explained the process in advance and delivered on their promises. I look forward to working with them in partnership to maximize the potential of our Agility product and return on investment.”
Steve Caughey
Managing Director
Arjuna Technologies Ltd