Reading the Cambridge Evening News of 27 October 2009, my eye was caught by the name BlueGnome ranked 20th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list. BlueGnome? I know that name. Google brought up Cambridge BlueGnome “provides leading solutions for detection of copy number variation in the human genome“. I was not much wiser and I could not find any details of the management or investors on the website.
Further down the Google page, I noticed a heading “Cambridge Enterprise – Success Stories“. When I read the short case study, it all came back to me. Nick Haan, the rather intense statistician, had made it to the big time. And great that he has. Through his wife’s business connections, Nick met Graham Sudden, who was then working for local telecommunications software company Commtag. They investigated the market, rewrote and rewrote the business plan, and in 2003 received funding from the University of Cambridge’s Challenge Fund after being turned down by VCs and “negotiations fell apart” with angel investors. In 2004 further funding was raised from NESTA and the Wellcome Trust. Revenues for 2008 were expected to be around £3million and, to be included in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50,the business must be going very well.
So the question is how could the angels and the other investors miss such an opportunity? If the founders had managed to convince the angels and/or VCs to invest, would they be even higher up the Fast 50 list? Cambridge BlueGnome would make a very interesting case study and I wonder which business plan they use? Do they have an option scheme? Are the two founders equal shareholders? So interesting to listen and to learn from them as it is such a good example of taking an academic idea and launching it to the market. Could it have happened in any other cluster or were the skills and supported offered in the Cambridge Cluster crucial and not available elsewhere?
Let us hope that Nick and Graham can be persuaded to address a CUTEC meeting and help us understand where we as angels went wrong.
But great to have another success in the Cambridge Cluster.
And what will happen to Camstent? What can they learn from this case study?
Post a Comment