SMALL CAP SHARES IDEAS: Innovation discovery search group Tekcapital has the right formula for success
By Ian Lyall, Proactive Investors
Published: | Updated:
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History is littered with growth companies that have set the word alight with their inventions only to be overtaken and finally usurped by second or third movers in the space.
AltaVista, Excite and Magellan were pioneers of internet search, yet you'd struggle to find mention of them on the first page of a Google search.
Sir Clive Sinclair was roundly lampooned for the C5 electric car, but many forget he was the father of the pocket calculator and home PC.
Search Tekcapital has devised an algorithm that is able to search the worldwide web for patented technology
The list of heroic failures is endless, winopoker particularly here in the UK, where we gave away our jet aerospace industry to the Americans.
'You just don't know where the innovation will come from that will kill your business overnight,' says Malcolm Groat, finance director of Tekcapital.
'There is someone out there with a great axe who's going to hack through the wall.'
Groat's comments are informed by his experience in industry, though he's also learned a lot about the fast moving world of innovation in his role with Tekcapital, which made its debut on AIM last month.
The company has come up with an algorithm that is able to search the worldwide web for patented technology that may pose a threat or represent a transformational opportunity to growth companies.
The service is aimed at c-level executives assessing the uniqueness of their firm's intellectual property before flicking the switch on millions of pounds-worth of further research and development.
'If you are a CEO or CFO, you want to know before you invest a whole lot of money into a particular R&D project that nobody is going to eat your lunch tomorrow; that someone hasn't been working on it for years in India,' says Groat.
The Innovation Discovery Network (IDN) is designed only to search for intellectual property that is patented and available for commercialisation.
TEKCAPITAL AT A GLANCE
Ticker: TEK
Value: £5.5million
Listed at: 25p
Current price: 24.55p
Where a simple query using Google might return millions of results, the IDN is able to slim this down to a manageable and relevant list.
It isn't just about the algorithm.