Cognotec, the Dublin-based financial software firm, has raised $14.5 million (€15.2 million) and hopes to turn a profit by the end of 2002 or early 2003.
The firm, which has raised almost $100 million since it was founded in the early 1990s, will use the cash to expand into developing markets in Asia. It will also aim to cut operating losses, which were $34.9 million during 2000.
The private equity arm of Standard Chartered Bank, FinVentures, provided two-thirds of the new funding. Existing investors in Cognotec, including the US investment bank Warburg Pincus and the Japanese internet investment group Softbank, also participated in the current funding round.
The size of the minority stake in Cognotec taken by FinVentures was not disclosed. The company as a whole is undoubtedly valued considerably below the $220 million achieved in the dotcom hype during 2000.
Prior to this investment, Cognotec founder and chairman Mr Brian Maccaba and staff owned about 50 per cent of the firm, Softbank had 31 per cent, and Warburg Pincus owned just under 20 per cent of the company.
Mr Maccaba said FinVentures was a strategic investor and would open up opportunities for the firm in developing countries.
"Trade flows are moving to fast emerging markets and we see opportunities there for us, maybe not within six months, but in two, three or five years," he said.
Cognotec's core business is the provision of software that enables automated real-time services to financial firms that provide foreign exchange, money market and other treasury services.
