David Sibbald knows what it's like to start a tech company when seed capital is tight. He had to use his own money in 1992 to launch Atlantech, a Scottish network-management software company, because in those days getting external financing was almost impossible in Europe.
Now Sibbald, who sold Atlantech to Cisco for $180 million in 2000, is at it again. In April he will launch Sumerian Networks, which will integrate a range of software tools to help Fortune 500 companies maximize their investments in networks by allowing them to add more applications and services while keeping costs under control. As with Atlantech, Sumerian will not take any external financing at the start. But this time around, the 42-year-old software developer is determined to build an independent company that will last — and keep its headquarters firmly planted in Scotland.
Like other countries in Europe, Scotland has a history
of scientific and technical innovation but has struggled
to develop it commercially. So Sibbald, the leader of
the recent Scottish leg of the European Tech Tour, served
as a source of inspiration to the 24 Scottish start-ups
that presented to some 50 investors from the U.S., Europe
and Asia. Among them was Martin Velasco, a Spaniard who
is one of Europe's best-known "business angels," giving
seed capital and strategic advice to entrepreneurs in
return for a stake in their company. Velasco, a former
board member of Spanish phone company Telefónica
and a co-leader of the McKinsey worldwide telecommunications
group, |
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TOM FINNIE/ATOM PHOTOGRAPHIC
DAVID
SIBBALD Coming back to stay in Silicon
Glen |
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first met Sibbald in 1998 through
Sven Lingjaerde, co-founder of the Swiss venture-capital
firm Vision Capital and head of the European
Tech Tour Association. Velasco wound up investing
in Atlantech and joining its board. Now, Velasco
is serving as a co-founder of Sumerian Networks.
He and Sibbald are out to prove that European
companies don't need to move to the U.S. to
succeed — at least not from the start.
"There is a market here in Europe," Sibbald
says. And, as he is fond of proving, disadvantages
can be turned to advantages. While it's true
that Scotland is small, that makes it easy
for entrepreneurs, academics and government
to get together. After bootstrapping itself
for three years, Atlantech did get a cash
injection from Scottish Equity Partners, a
government-backed investment firm that is
now an independent, $150 million fund.
But as Sibbald has learned, the right connections
are key. In addition to his role at Sumerian,
Velasco plans to use his links in Europe and
the U.S. to connect up four of the companies
on the Scottish tech tour: Rhetorical Systems,
which makes text-to-speech software; Digital
Animations Group and Virtual Clones, two companies
that create virtual characters or avatars;
and Voxar Limited, which makes 3-D medical-imaging
software. These new relationships could, in
turn, help build other great Scottish companies.
It may never become a Silicon Valley, but
the next wave of entrepreneurs looks set to
— at the very least — enlarge
Scotland's Silicon Glen. |
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PROMOTION
