Needs of Global Start-up companies (Deliverable 2) GlobalStart wp1 Studies Deliverable 2 Needs of Global Start-up Companies Table of contents p

What helped/hindered the company in its development

The main factors helping the company were:

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  Assistance from Warwick Ventures, the technology transfer arm of the University. This included “ghost writing” the business plan, introductions to venture capitalists, a very small amount of funding, and temporary loan of some office space.
  
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  A flexible approach from the University more generally, which included easy approvals processes, and release of Dr Rudgyard from some of his duties. The University has been well rewarded, in that its share stake is now worth at least £700,000.
  
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  Early stage funding from the Mercia Fund was crucial. The Mercia Fund is one of the UK University Challenge Funds, which are dedicated to funding early stage spin-off companies with up to £250,000 of equity and loan funding. The Mercia Fund invested in Streamline at a time when hardly any other investors would have considered it, and have been rewarded with a three-fold increase in the value of their shares.
  
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  Suitable accommodation on short-term flexible leases from the University of Warwick Science Park.
  
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  Government grants (such as the Smart Award*) and tax relief (as R&D tax credits) have been helpful, though not crucial.
  

Increasingly, organizations are recognizing the cost/performance benefits of cluster and grid computing. By talking to Streamline, clients benefit from their insight into the most appropriate way of using clustering technology to achieve significantly higher performance for a lower or equivalent cost than the supercomputer alternative.

Aademic customers include the universities of Aston, Bath, Birmingham, Cambridge, Durham, Essex, Exeter, Hull, Imperial, Kent, Lancaster, Leicester, Leeds, Liverpool, Loughborough, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Portsmouth, QMW, Salford, St Andrews, Surrey, Sussex, University College London, Warwick and York, the Open University, the Medical Reseach Council and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Commercial customers include Astex Technologies, ChevronTexaco, Corus, Cosworth Technology, Fujitsu, McLaren Formula One, OHM Surveys, Organon Research, Qinetiq, Rolls Royce, Schlumberger Geoquest, Serco Assurance, Tularik and UK AEA.

Streamline has installed the most powerful Linux and Solaris clusters in the UK, five of which are in the top 500 list. Their experience includes a 256 processor AMD Opteron Myrinet cluster, and numerous 256+ processor Intel Myrinet systems, 176 and 128 processor Ultrasparc III/Myrinet systems. They have also delivered heterogeneous clusters using Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and Myrinet.

Streamline's own software products are in use at academic, governmental and commercial sites in Europe, the US and Asia; they are also contributing research to academic projects in the UK.