One of the grim side effects of the economic downturn is the
collapse of companies with technical skills and intellectual
property assets.
A group of software veterans, including three former top executives
at i2 Technologies have launched a new company designed to find and
re-deploy intellectual property that has been orphaned in the
economic slump.
Dallas-based Titan Ventures formally launched its operations last
week, with Reagan Lancaster, former president of i2, serving as
president and chief executive officer; Dave Cary as chief financial
officer and Claudio Osorio a founding partner of the new
venture.
The company plans to take outsourcing one step further, by becoming
the trade intermediary between those who have and who that need
software IP, or by forming specially created subsidiaries that will
focus on marketing and selling it.
"The goal of the company is to add new life to intellectual
property assets that have been written off," Lancaster said. "In
today's times, the venture capitalists are at their wits ends
investing in start-up companies and are willing to write off
companies with no revenue."
The company plans to acquire intellectual property for enterprise
applications from a variety of sources, including IT vendors, user
companies, open source developers and consulting firms.
Because of the stress to the bottom-line in the current economic
crunch, many vendors have whittled down their product line from
perhaps hundreds of solutions to only the handful they can afford
to market, Lancaster said.
For these companies, Titan plans to offer to set up a new company
to market specific products, giving the former owner a 19% stake, a
percentage of revenues and an opportunity to buy back the
technology when the market improves. Titan will take employees that
support the technology off the books of the vendor and employ them
with the new company.
"It gives them a toe in the water to keep in touch with the talent
and the technology out there without writing it off," Lancaster
said.
Titan will also be targeting the top 500 US companies that may have
custom developed technology for in-house use. The company will
offer to support and maintain the application developed by the user
company, but market it to other non-competing companies, Lancaster
said.
"There are so many companies that have great technology and they're
treating it as a cost centre, and they could have a viable product
that could be profitable."
The company will also act as a merchant for IT vendors seeking to
acquire a specific type of technology.
Titan estimates that software IP assets languishing unused in
corporations, failed start-ups, educational institutions and
government agencies have a value of more than £350bn.