Orbo folds after failing to crack security market: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2006/03/26 > Orbo folds after failing to crack security market

Orbo folds after failing to crack security market
Sunday, March 26, 2006 - By Ian Kehoe
Orbo Technologies, a Dublin technology firm backed by Executive Venture Partners (EVP) and Enterprise Ireland, has collapsed.

The company will be wound up at a creditors’ meeting on Thursday and a liquidator will be appointed.

Jim Maher, the chief executive of Orbo, said the directors had no choice but to put the firm into liquidation and that its debts would be modest.

‘‘It is regrettable but necessary,” Maher said.

Orbo was founded in 2002 by Cormac Kelly and Stephen McCormack. The company developed software to remotely encrypt, retrieve or destroy information on laptops or handheld computers if they were stolen.

In March last year, Orbo raised €1 million in a funding round led by EVP and backed by Enterprise Ireland and a number of private investors.

The company had been actively seeking funding since 2003.

Maher, who joined Orbo after the funding round, said the company had attempted to generate more business in recent months and had secured a number of new clients. However, it was not enough to save the business and Orbo stopped trading in recent weeks.

He said decision-makers in the security market were reluctant to award contracts to small companies such as Orbo.

Instead, they opted to buy from established multinationals as they represented ‘‘the line of least risk’’.

Maher said he had tried to refocus Orbo on selling to large firms rather than small and medium-sized companies over the past year.

‘‘We nearly did it, but we just did not get there in time,” he said. Maher previously founded and ran financial software firm Allfinanz.

Tom Byrne, a co-founder and partner in EVP, said Orbo was a ‘‘good company with a good product’’ but had found it difficult to break into the international security market.

He said Orbo had secured a number of trials of its technology, but could not translate them into sales.

‘‘We supported the company as best we could,” said Byrne, who became non-executive chairman of Orbo after last year’s investment.

‘‘It would have taken a lot more money to bring it to the point where it was stable.

‘‘At a certain point, you have to stop.”

Byrne said that the collapse of Orbo would not deter EVP from investing in other early-stage technology companies.

‘‘You have to expect that things like this will happen from time to time,” he said.