A Belgian firm which claims to have developed a new way of sealing and storing unstructured data has won $10m in venture funding. Dutch venture capitalist Alpinvest, Belgian investors Gimv and Flanders Language Valley Fund and KBC Bank are among those putting money into Mechelen-based Filepool NV.
FilepoolÆs æe-ClipÆ is a tag for data such as a Word file, PowerPoint presentation or video clip that allows users to access the information like a hyperlink. An e-Clip differs from a normal URL because it doesnÆt contain location-specific information, so it doesnÆt change when usersÆ back-end systems are altered. Filepool claims that it is unbreakable.
FilepoolÆs strategy is ultimately aimed at software players like Microsoft and Oracle, but it wants to gain some critical mass over the next one to two years, to avoid being swallowed too quickly. We want to stay below the radar for the moment, says marketing manager Geert Rottier. The company will sell the software free and take a cut from every time an e-Clip is used. The cut ranges from BFr6 for batches of 100,000 to BFr17 for single uses ($0.16 to $0.45).
To grow, it will use the $10m to establish an indirect sales channel with up to 100 partnerships with systems integrators and application developers across Europe over the next year. Belgian systems integrators Telindus NV and Real Software NV are already allies, as is Digilink NV, an electronic printing firm. Filepool will try to talk with Arthur Andersen and PricewaterhouseCoopers next year.
Filepool is targeting enterprise resource planning firms, which can link unstructured data with their applications without building or maintaining a separate relational database. Storage firms will benefit from the improved data management, Filepool says, because they are not constrained by particular data locations or structures and have more flexibility in deciding where to store the information.
Collaborative software users, like teams of lawyers, might use the technology for sharing information, sending an e-Clip, without the need for an address on where to find the relevant data. CTO Jan Van Riel says that the permutations of the e-Clip, which is a 34-digit ASCII number, are infinite.
Filepool has also changed its name from Wave Research NV. Established in 1991, it has offices in Frankfurt and Paris and plans to open new branches in the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands in the first quarter next year. The company expects to break even in two to three yearsÆ time.
