PutPlace set for kick-off after cash injection

Digital data management company PutPlace will formally launch its service in the coming weeks, following the completion of a funding round last week.

The firm provides an online digital data management service, which allows users to organise, back-up and share content. Users can track their content online and across a range of devices, such as mobile phones and computers. All data is also backed up to the web in real time.

Last week industry veterans Pat Lynch and Michael O’Callaghan joined the PutPlace board. Existing board members include the company’s founder Joe Drumgoole and last year’s Irish Software Association Technology Person of the Year, Brian Caulfield.

Caulfield has been involved with PutPlace since its inception and said the firm was in a strong position ‘‘to accelerate service roll out and capture the market’’. He initially became involved with the firm through a personal connection with Drumgoole that extends back to their days in Trinity College. Personal ties aside, Caulfied said he was also aware of ‘‘Joe’s successful track record in delivering working technology to the market’’.

Caulfield’s own track record is also impressive. In 1992, he co-founded Exceptis Technologies, which was then sold to Trintech Group in November 2000. He has also co-founded two other venture capital backed software start-ups, Similarity Systems and Prediction Dynamics, and has also worked with Trinity Venture Capital.

Looking at PutPlace from the eyes of a venture capitalist, Caulfield said the firm had enormous potential for two main reasons. Firstly he said there was a large market opportunity due to the number of people using digital content.

Also he said the level of experience on the board left the firm well placed. PutPlace was set up in January 2006 and is based at the Digital Hub in Dublin. It employs seven people, but the firm said it was actively recruiting at present. Its recent funding round was a co-investment between existing and new investors and Enterprise Ireland. It brought total investment in the firm to date to just over €1 million. Caulfield said the firm may need to seek further funding in the future to allow it to grow further.

‘‘The company has the potential to be acquired in the relatively short term as a technology acquisition, but there is also a market opportunity to build a significant scale company if it gets its sales and marketing right,” he added.

© 2008 The Sunday Business Post