GEM (Global E-Mail Company), the company founded three months ago by Northern businessman, Mr Owen Lamont, has raised initial private funding of £7 million sterling, placing an early valuation on the company of £34 million (€53 million).
Conducted through NCB Stockbrokers, a group of private individual investors from Northern Ireland and the Republic has taken just over a 20 per stake in the company. Belfast-based Gem offers a corporate e-mail reply service for large companies inundated by e-mail queries.
Mr Lamont says he does not envisage a second investment round in the short term, as he expects the company to be self-financing once it secures revenues and gets to a position of scale.
"We would only plan to go back to our investors for acquisition opportunities, which will be much further down the line. We are planning to aggressively target the North American market, but don't expect to dominate for another two years anyway."
Gem has invested £1 million in its development to date, and currently employs 30 people, which Mr Lamont plans to increase to 300 by the end of next year. He says the fund-raising round was well oversubscribed, and an endorsement of Gem's business plan.
"We sought funding at a particularly difficult time for the technology market, and I believe it is a reflection on the strength of the business plan and the management team we have put together," Mr Lamont says.
He added Gem would be making a number of high profile non-executive appointments in the coming months.
Gem has nine founding directors who are also investors in the company. Prior to this fund-raising, Mr Lamont and chief operating officer, Mr Phillip Cassidy, were the two biggest shareholders with a majority stake of just over 50 per cent. This holding has now been diluted, but the company would not disclose details of the new shareholder breakdown.
Mr Lamont was formerly managing director of NTL Cabletel Ireland, and former president of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He is well known as a shrewd businessman in the telecommunications sector.
Mr Lamont was prompted to establish the company when he saw how many large companies put their websites on the Internet, and then fail to respond to the thousands of e-mails they receive through the website. At the moment, a third of corporate e-mails do not get a reply.
Gem operates like an e-mail "call centre", handling e-mail queries on behalf of companies. This opens up potential for other outsourced services such as data mining, where trends can be identified through the information garnered, and targeted marketing campaigns.
