Irish Firm Gets Green With $10M

Call it the luck of the Irish. As the story goes, investor Damien Callaghan and a colleague were surfing the Web one day in search of a company worth investing in. During the search they came upon a Dublin, Ireland-based software company that made their Irish eyes smile.

Vordel Ltd., a company that develops products that increase business efficiency and security, and reduce communication costs, earned funding from Callaghan?s Intel 64 team. This was part of a $10 million Series B deal led by Elderstreet DrKC Ltd.. New investors included ICC Venture Capital, Powerscourt Nominees Ltd., and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, plus the Intel 64 Fund. Simon Cook of Elderstreet and Anne Bannon of ICC took Vordel board seats in this most recent round.

David Ryan, Vordel?s chief executive, said the financing reflects the company?s mature product set. “Investors could see and play?they could stress test?the technology,” he said.

Vordel?s signature TalkXML suite facilitates secure data transmission using digital certificates over public or private networks, and between new and existing systems.

What is more, the company claims TalkXML can immediately raise the bottom line of any business by allowing existing systems and people to communicate securely using XML. TalkXML secures business communications, and extracts additional value from existing IT infrastructures by allowing inter-enterprise integration.

Moreover, Vordel?s secure framework allows connection irrespective of language, location, or internal or external communication, Ryan said.Vordel will be using its second round of funding to ramp up its sales efforts and launch the third iteration of its TalkXML technology.

The firm raised $1.5 million in June 2000 in a Series A deal. In addition to its Ireland headquarters, it has sales offices in the U.S. and the U.K. It also has business partners in those countries, as well as in Switzerland.

Contact Larissa Masny: Larissa.Masny@tfn.com