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July 12, 2006
Groove-Clone Collanos Targets MBA Types And Angels
Since Microsoft acquired Groove a year or so ago, there have been a lot of entrepreneurs attracted to the collaborative software niche. The latest to launch is Collanos, which has a Swiss founding team and is based in Zurich and San Francisco.
Its first target market is consultant types and MBA students, based on the belief that this user group has the most pressing need for an application that can sync documents between users working for different companies or outside of a company context, as well as support working offline, recently recruited CEO Peter Helfenstein told the alarm:clock euro.
He also said that the startup is currently seeking angel funding.
Collanos, which runs on the three major operating systems, hopes for a network effect and rapid user uptake based on a free version and premium services that provide additional functionality and convenience, such as team synchronization servers, desktop integration, and custom functionality.
The company was founded in 2003 by software engineer, Franco Dal Molin who hails from Miracle, a now-defunct Swiss ERP software developer. He funded development via family and friends, near-sourcing some of the development in Bulgaria.
(a:c euro readers may remember Miracle. It was founded in the mid-ninenties and became one of the high flyers in Switzerland short bubble era. Its spectacular IPO made a few investors wealthy, its underwriting bank a small fortune, and some returns also went to the firm's management team, but the stock eventually plunged and the company flopped, due to a combination of bad press in Switzerland amidst tech stock bubble implosion. Software firms do not fare well on SWX as a general rule.)
Before that Dal Molin founded Object Solutions and sold it to GFT Technologies.
Based on consulting the expertise of some of our readers, the a:c euro believes that Collanos has as good an opportunity as any of the competitors in this hotly contested market. Its CEO has software industry experience but as with other web-based applications it is all a matter of who leads in the network effect and finds the best way to capitalize on the user base.
Read- Collanos Pioneers With Peer-to-Peer 2.0 Teamwork Solution (press release)
Posted on July 12, 2006 06:24 AM | Posted to Early stage | Permalink
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