SoftCo, the Dublin-based e-business software company, is undertaking a £20 million (€25 million) marketing and product development campaign, which may culminate in a public listing on the US Nasdaq and German Neuer Markt stock exchanges by the end of this year.
The company, which was founded and remains almost wholly owned by Mr Jim Coffey and Ms Susan Spence, says it has completed developing a number of key technologies which it will showcase at CeBit in Hanover, and IT for Wall Street in the US next week. The technologies form the basis for e-business, and will allow multiple business-to-business buyers and sellers trade online.
SoftCo, which is currently valued at around £200 million, will shortly appoint investment advisers to advise on the company's future funding strategy. It is expected SoftCo will seek a strategic private investment in the short term, and may look to an initial public offering of 25 per cent of the company's equity by the end of the year.
Its electronic business architecture has been developed on a standards-based (XML) platform over the past two years, making SoftCo one of the first companies to bring such products to the market. This will pitch SoftCo firmly as a competitor of CommerceOne and Ariba, two US-based companies investing heavily in global e-procurement projects.
It is understood SoftCo is generating a lot of industry interest, and it is now selecting strategic partners to make further investments in its latest venture, buzztrading.com.
The first of 20 joint venture market sites to be announced by SoftCo over the coming weeks, buzztrading.com is pitched largely at small and medium enterprises who want to trade their products online, through a "best price" system.
Operating as a subsidiary of SoftCo, the site's pre-launch value has been set at around £15 million, following a £2.5 million investment from private individual investors for 15 per cent of buzztrading.com's equity. SoftCo has also invested £2.5 million in the new venture.
In the coming weeks SoftCo will seek further investment from a strategic partner. According to Ms Susan Spence, SoftCo chairman and co-founder, the company's next investment will come from a large European media organisation, or a telecommunications company.
"We need to demonstrate how business will be changed by e-commerce. Not only is our technology embedded in the online trading sites, but we are investing with our partners in them," Ms Spence said. As further investors join buzztrading.com, SoftCo envisages its stake will be heavily diluted, and ultimately the site may become a target for a trade sale.
SoftCo is currently partnering with Trintech, the secure online payment specialist, and German company POET Software, which provides critical data and catalogue management software for Internet suppliers. It is understood POET may also be about to engage in a strategic software alliance with CommerceOne.
Until now, SoftCo has kept a relatively low profile within the software industry. The move to provide online procurement marketplaces pitches SoftCo at a new level, and is bound to generate investor interest, given that the e-business market is estimated by the Gartner Group to be worth £3.4 trillion by 2004.
