Situation management software developer Orsus Ltd. has acquired the intellectual property assets of Ireland-based Cinario Ltd., which develops intelligent operational risk management systems.
Sources inform ''Globes'' that Orsus paid a few million dollars. The company had the wherewithal for the deal thanks to a recent financing round. The acquisition of Cinario is Orsus' second purchase, after acquiring Israeli start-up SpeedWise for $15 million in 2002.
Orsus was founded in 1999 by chairman Aryeh Finegold, the founder of Mercury Interactive and Daisy Systems, together with other former Mercury executives. Finegold served as Orsus's CEO until 2005.
Finegold said, "The difference is that we founded Orsus with too much money, in contrast to the days of Mercury and Daisy, when we were hungry."
According to IVC Online, Orsus has raised more than $70 million to date. The company's workforce peaked at 164, but it currently has only 55 employees. Despite shakeups, sources at the company say that it has had very rapid growth in the past two years, and that its orders backlog shows promise for the future.
The acquisition of Cinario will extend Orsus's reach in the UK and strengthen its position in the intelligent operational risk management systems market. Cinario was founded in 2002. Its clients includes Tesco plc (LSE: TCO), Britain's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) UK subsidiary ASDA, Dixons, Johnson Controls Inc. (NYSE: JCI), G4S plc (LSE: GFS), and the National University of Ireland.
Former Cinario CEO Charlie Sherlock and CTO John Breen will join Orsus' management team. Orsus is currently working towards migrating Cinario's existing customer base from the Cinario Enterprise Manager software, a workflow management, integration and monitoring solution, to Orsus's Situator solution.
Orsus has undergone a number of incarnations since it was founded, including major changes in its target markets. During the Internet boom in the early 2000s, company originally focused on B2B solutions, but then switched to homeland security. Three years ago, on the basis of its situation management product, it again changed its focus to the enterprise market. The company Situator solution coordinates the interaction between people, alerting technologies and response actions.
"Globes": If your target market is in such great shape, what happened to Cinario?
Orsus CEO Gil Weiser: "In order to penetrate large enterprises, you need financial strength, which it lacked. We could have chosen to continue operating at the regular pace or growing rapidly through the acquisition of its intellectual property. We chose the second option."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 11, 2009
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