AppShare wins fresh funding

By Kirsty Dorsey
Published on Friday 23 December 2011 00:00

WEB technology developer AppShare has secured £500,000 in a fourth funding round designed to see the business through to profitability.

The Glasgow-based company’s software – which allows large businesses to collaborate across different sites – will begin a three-month trial with haulier Eddie Stobart in January, marking the first large-scale use of the production version of AppShare.

A beta version of the technology has been in development on a pilot basis with Robert Wiseman Dairies since May, where it is still in use.

Stephen Behan, chief executive of AppShare, said the launch of the production version should allow the company to achieve profitability on a cash flow basis by July. The business, formed around the spin-out of technology from Strathclyde University, was set up in 2007 and received its first seed funding in 2008.

The latest funding round was led by Aim-quoted Braveheart, the Perth-based group of business investment angels. Other follow-on investors included Strathclyde Innovation Fund – which is managed by Braveheart – the Scottish Investment Bank’s co-investment fund and Strathclyde University.

Following this latest cash injection, institutional shareholders now own 45 per cent of AppShare, with Strathclyde University sitting on a 13.2 per cent stake. Since launch, AppShare has raised a total of about £1.2 million.

The deal comes just days after Braveheart led a £340,000 investment in Livingston-based Conjunct, which makes devices to raise the amount of data being carried by optical fibres and the speeds at which they operate. That funding round followed £280,000 being injected into the Heriot-Watt University spin out last year and £300,000 in 2008.

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