Israeli company Geo Interactive Media Group plans to raise between 22.5m pounds to 27m pounds by issuing 19 million shares on the London Stock Exchange to finance a big expansion of sales and marketing and the launch of new products. The company claims a big advantage over competitors with its Emblaze software, which enables sound and video to be downloaded over the internet without the need for plug-ins used by its competitors. Instead, its software initially downloads a Java applet that handles the decompression of the images that follow. Geo is geared to work with low-bandwidth networks and is working towards systems that can offer television quality picture and sounds over the ænet. The company is at a point in its three-year history where it desperately needs cash to cover the huge gap between rising revenues and massively accelerating costs. Revenues climbed from 775,000 pounds in 1995 to 1.4m pounds the following year and leapt to 3.0m pounds in the year to December 31 1977. However R&D costs have leapt from 316,000 pounds to 3.9m pounds over the past year and building a sales and marketing organization from scratch led to costs of 6.5m pounds. Consequently, losses have grown from 765,000 pounds in 1995 to 9.8m pounds last year. Geo, which was floated on LondonÆs Alternative Investment Market in 1966, is using concepts developed when its founders worked for the Israeli military forces developing virtual battlefields. Those who have experienced this environment say that the sense that their countryÆs survival depends on what they do tends to stretch minds in a way that would be impossible in the military of more secure countries. Initially, Geo developed software to deliver interactive multimedia on CD-ROM. Now it is looking to use its core technology Emblaze to delivery interactive multimedia in a host of products over intranets and the internet. It is planning 3D version of its software, an email product that will enable multimedia application to be exchanged without networks crashing and live audio and video software. Though Geo is engaged in head to head battles with big players such as RealNetworks Inc and Macromedia Inc, it claims to have significant advantage over rivals and at least a yearÆs lead in technology.
