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Aspects Receives US$7.6 Million RBV Funding
Aspects Software announced that the company has received US$7.6 Million in funding led by Royal Bank Ventures (RBV), the technology venture capital fund of The Royal Bank of Scotland's Equity Finance Unit. Alongside RBV, all of the existing investors - Scottish Equity Partners, 3i and Commerzbank Securities- made follow-on investments.
This new capital will enable Aspects to further its global growth and expansion in international markets. Gavin Petken, Investment Director at RBV, has joined Aspects' Board of Directors.
Aspects, based in Edinburgh, with offices in San Jose, Orlando and Tokyo, has been the leading supplier of testing, prototyping and simulation tools in the wireless industry for the last 10 years. With over 220 customers in 33 countries, Aspects was one of the first companies to develop and supply test tools in the smart card market. Aspects, already considered the industry standard for development and test tools, is now well positioned to achieve a similar position in the supply of Java Card operating systems for smart cards.
Robert Brown, CEO of Aspects, commented, "Java Card technology is rapidly becoming recognised as the operating system of choice for smart cards. With the market for smart cards growing rapidly this new funding could not be better timed for Aspects."
"The growth in demand for smart cards has been fuelled by: the ever-increasing demand for greater security and interoperability in the mobile phone market; the need for more stringent personal identification procedures post September 11th; the need for secure personal identification due to the large and increasing amount of consumer credit fraud in the credit/debit card market; and finally the growth of Multi Media storage devices.
"With such a dramatic increase in the size of the markets this funding allows Aspects to significantly strengthen its position as a specialist provider of an operating system, rapid application development tools and test tools for smart cards providing a strong platform for future success."
In June 2001, Aspects acquired a Java Card technology license from Sun Microsystems. The company has recently completed development of its Java Card IDE (Integrated Development Environment), a visual development environment which enables users to customise their Java Card technology-based smart cards and SIMs by developing their own Java applets.
Gavin Petken, Investment Director at Royal Bank Ventures, said, "Mobile, financial and security card issuers have a fundamental need for higher performance, improved interoperability and greater functionality from smart and SIM cards, to increase revenue and lower costs. As the leading independent Java Card software provider, Aspects is ideally placed to help card issuers extract maximum value from ubiquitous smart and SIM card technology platforms. With the broad applicability of its software, Aspects has strong growth prospects and we are delighted to be able to support the company through the next stage of its development alongside strong co-investors."
Stuart Paterson, Investment Director at Scottish Equity Partners, said on behalf of the existing investors: "As existing investors we are very pleased to be supporting Aspects Software in this further round of substantial investment. The company has made significant progress with some of the major players within the smart card market for their newly launched, open and fully interoperable Java Card technology. Smart cards are the most secure silicon-based hardware product manufactured worldwide and with over a billion sold each year they are shipped in greater numbers than any other semiconductor application. Aspects' new operating system will enable lower card costs and greater functionality for the issuers of cards such as mobile operators, banks and providers of ID and security."
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