Zeus Technology, a Cambridge, UK-based web-hosting server company founded by two Cambridge undergraduates four years ago, is in talks with an American West Coast venture capital company to sell approximately 10% of its stock. The break-down of the deal is not yet confirmed, but the two directors, Adam Twiss and Damien Reeves, each own 42.5% of the company at present. The additional money will go towards establishing an office in San Francisco, as well as increasing ZeusÆs UK operations.
Bryan Amesbury, ZeusÆs general manager, said that consumer demand was driving the move. He said that Zeus customers include the British telecommunications giant Cable & Wireless and companies of similar or greater size. The Zeus server is far better than anything on the market, said Katherine OÆDonovan of Zeus. It is faster and more scalable, she argues. She said that expanding companies wanting to increase the size of their web sites donÆt need to change their systems, nor buy more processing, thereby saving on both hardware and license fees.
The Netcraft Web Server Survey puts Zeus, which is run by 40,000 sites, at number nine in the server charts, ahead of such names at Lotus Domino and Sun Web Server. The San Francisco office will employ around 25 new staff, said Amesbury, and the eight in Cambridge should expand to an equivalent number from April onward.
Twiss and Reeves established the business in their spare time, studying for degrees in computer science at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Four years later they own a company – boasting a staff of eight – valued at around 30 million pounds.
