Signum :-

Avent Venture Partners & 3i Back Signum a fast-growing Digital Watermarking Company - January 2000

Advent Venture Partners and 3i have today announced an investment of over £1.25 million into Signum Technologies Ltd. ('Signum'), a digital watermarking software company. Advent Venture Partners, the leading technology venture capitalist, has invested £1 million from Advent 2 VCT plc and 3i, Europe's leading venture capital company, has injected funds to support the company for the third time.

Signum designs and sells a range of digital watermarking software products that enable owners of copyrighted digital material (e.g. sound, images and documents) to imperceptibly identify their material by an encoded software watermark. Its enabling technology protects valuable multi-media material against copyright abuse or tampering. The watermarking software is also used to authenticate digital files - financial documents, medical records, scene-of-crime photos - against fraudulent or accidental alteration.

Signum's clients include the BBC Natural History Archives, Agence France Presse (AFP) and The Ordnance Survey.

The funding will allow Signum to further expand its product range and sales activity over the Internet, particularly as the use of watermarking software is expected to grow significantly with the increasing use of digital documents and images.

Allied Powers is now working with Signum Technologies Ltd, the world’s premier developer of advanced digital data protection and integrity technology.

A wholly British company, Signum Technologies is based in Witney, near Oxford, England. The company, whose corporate shareholders include 3i plc, Schroder Ventures and Highwater Designs Ltd also have representation in Japan, and are expanding in North America and the Far East.

The increased demand for Signum’s data validation and new copyright protection software, VeriData and SureSign, has led the company to grow significantly in the past two years.

This technology opens up a host of applications in all fields of media, professional and legal endeavour.

Driven by the needs of a diverse client base, their responsive R&D and business teams continue to shape the future direction of the company’s advanced watermarking solutions.

Graham Shaw, MD of Signum, commented recently:

“John Elsden and I have worked well together. We have now moved to our purpose built offices where we are now entering a planned growth phase, based on our recent funding round which he was instrumental in securing”.