Cambridge Cluster

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Very strange reading the papers in the UK and hearing news from the USA about budget cuts and contrasting it with the talk by Paul Graham at the Y Combinator Startup School 2010.

Graham’s talk is all about lots of clever money seeing the quick returns on startups in Silicon Valley and wanting some of the action.  The angels are forming Super Angel groups and the VCs are prepared to invest smaller amounts for first rounds of £300k.  The valuations are going up and up so it is a good time to raise funds providing, as always, you make great progress and can justify a higher valuation at the next round.  Lack of progress can lead to a lower valuation and a dreaded downround or no round.

Ignore the gloom about budgets and get out and start a great company.  But whatever funds you are offered, use a great business plan resource and keep exceeding the targets.  Graham pointed out the recent effect of small startups funded by angels being bought up early giving returns of 10x to angels in one year.  As returns have to be related to time, these 10x returns in one year are way ahead of the returns angels received in even Google where they had to wait five years.

Are you Booming or Busting?

But take great care as ever!

PS Do listen to Ron Conway et al talking at Startup School.

Just like Xensource but not on the same financial scale, Imsense has been absorbed (by Apple in this case) according to MacRumors.com.  Only by searching through the records at Companies House were MacRumors.com able to verify that Apple were the purchasers as the new directors were Apple employees.  The site comments that “We also note that imsense Director of Engineering Alexis Gatt left the company in July 2010, just as it was being acquired, to become senior engineer at Apple” which appears to confirm the story.

Apple has cleared nearly all references to Imsense from the web but there is link to a LinkedIn page (I have copies the page below in case it disappears) and a “video of a 2009 presentation by imsense CEO Philippe Dewost demonstrating the company’s technology is also available“.

For a change, this is a spin-out of the University of East Anglia (UEA) but guess Imsense moved from Norwich to the Cambridge Cluster.

Financial details are slim but there must have been some angel funding (I seem to remember so from a meeting some time ago – Robert Swann etc).  According to MacRumors.com “According to a note on the website of Braveheart Ventures, which backed Imsense, the company was acquired by “an undisclosed trade buyer in July 2010″.

More from MacRumors.com “According to a press release from Braveheart, it received £342,000 for its minority stake in imsense, more than doubling its original £150,000 investment in two years.”  We can only speculate without obtaining the share ownership from Companies House, that Braveheart owned around 20% of the company which would mean a sale price of around £3million excluding any earn-outs.  It would be interesting to check out which business plan resource it used.

The success of Imsense and Xensource should inspire the Cambriddge Cluster but it is no good if no one celebrates and disappears with the cash.  We need to celebrate these successes to inspire others and give the Cambridge Cluster a boost.  I hope that there were some lucky angels (they will be listed on the records at Companies House) and I hope that Braveheart invests again and again.

PS. Business Weekly confirms that Dr Robert Swann was a director so well done Robert!  Alas Professor Graham Finlayson was too shy to comment and the University of East Anglia “said it knew nothing”.  I wonder if UEA will call in the Prof for a little chat about IP……  I am sure that Cambridge Enterprise would be hot on his trail if he worked for the University of Cambridge.  After all, tax payers funded some of the work and the UEA deserves to share in the rewards.

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From the LinkedIn link (in case it disappears).  It says it has only two employees:

imsense ltd. is a leading pioneer in automated, effortless, high quality Dynamic Range Optimization Solutions for still and video imaging. Its patented, award winning eye-fidelity™ technology is available for computer and mobile platforms, processes still images including HDR as well as video, perfectly revealing image details in just a click.

Founded by Davies Medal winner Prof. Finlayson, imsense is venture backed, based in Cambridge, and run by former Wanadoo co-founder Philippe Dewost.

Specialties

Computer vision, image processing, Dynamic Range Compression, HDR imaging, imaging software, licensing, IP

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  CEO – Chief Executive Officer

  Philippe D., Cambridge, United Kingdom

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  Video Processing Engineer

  Keith W., United Kingdom