AIB Equity has led a €2m equity investment in Dublin-based data quality management software vendor, Similarity Systems.
Since its establishment only two years ago, Similarity has gone against the tide in the tech downturn and has steadily increased employment to a present complement of 20 people. Other investors in the round included Ion Equity and HotOrigin and earlier investors such as Delta Capital and a number of private investors re-invested in the company.
In recent months, the company secured a number of key customer wins, including deals with Eircom plc and East Midlands Electricity.
AIB Equity’s Laurence Endersen said that the demand for data quality management software is growing swiftly and is expected to exceed €1bn by 2005, driven by a recognition that top-tier firms recognise that low data quality in their IT systems will seriously affect business performance. According to Gartner, by 2005, Fortune 1,000 companies will lose more money through operational inefficiencies due to data quality issues than they will spend on data warehousing or customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives.
Similarity’s flagship product, Athanor, is a management platform that incorporates data quality analysis, reporting and automated data enhancement capabilities and is aimed at large organisations, from financial institutions to government departments.
In related news, the venture capital arm of Intel has invested up to €2.5m in Galway-based communications billing software firm Am-beo.
By John Kennedy
