Oniva in merger move

Dublin-based Internet design and consultancy firm, Oniva, has merged with German consultancy firm, e-trend Media Consulting, in a move that makes it the only remaining independent Internet design and consultancy group of scale in the Republic.

In the last year both its main competitors here, Labyrinth and Webfactory, were purchased by Esat Telecom and Horizon Technology respectively.

The merged entity will trade under the name Oniva NV and will have its headquarters in Venlo in the Netherlands. All its software research and development will continue to be based in Ireland.

It is understood no cash changed hands in the deal and that the move is a purely strategic one to offer both companies greater scale to capture more of the European market for lucrative corporate Internet projects.

Oniva is also in the final stages of raising additional private funding from a number of German investors. Details of the fundraising have not been disclosed, but it is believed to amount to several million euros. At present, ownership of the design and consultancy group is split evenly between a range of private investors and employees of the merged entity.

Oniva employs 75 people. With the merger this will rise to 11, and staff numbers are expected to double year-on-year for the next three years. Oniva founder and managing director, Mr Wael Wansa, will take the role of chief technology officer within the new group.

Mr Wansa said Oniva was planning extremely rapid growth over the next two years, and was currently considering opening offices in Belfast, with a view to employing at least 60 people there within a year.

The recorded turnover of the combined operations for 1999 was £3.5 million. Mr Wansa expects this figure to increase nearly threefold to £9 million by the end of this year. He projects revenues next year will be around £18 million. Oniva's average contract size last year was between £50,000 and £100,000. Mr Wansa expects the size of these contracts to at least double following the merger, as it targets larger European organisations.

The company also plans to seek out growth opportunities - including possible acquisitions - over the coming year.

"We want to become a leading player in Europe, and this tie-up with Germany exhibits a much bigger business pipeline through the combination of customer bases.

"Through this merger, we've found a partner which can offer specification development and implementation work with a similar customer approach to our own," Mr Wansa says.

Existing clients of the combined group include Guinness, Nestle, Nissan, Knorr, Vichy, AOL/Compuserve, Dresdner Bank and Bertelsmann. The merger with e-trend Media Consulting has also opened a channel for Oniva to the Chinese business-to-business e-commerce market.