Strathmore scores deal with Microsoft founder

By Aimee McClinchy

Friday 2nd June 2000

Silicon Valley dealbroker Double Impact has introduced one of listed Strathmore Group's fledgling investee companies to a major deal with a US cable TV network.

Multimedia software company Inspar has secured its first major licensing deal with North American network ZDTV, owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Double Impact acted as a scout for the deal, a $400,000, 12-month renewable licensing deal for Inspar's video software product, clinched by Inspar's Australian chief executive and co-founder Andrew Matlock.

Double Impact is the US's largest venture "catalyst," which means it puts together venture capital deals.

Last year it brokered a multimillion dollar deal for Christchurch-based GlobalBrain with giant NBC Internet (Snap.com) and has a cross-shareholding and partnership relationship with Strathmore.

Mr Matlock, who is based in Double Impact's Silicon Valley "incubator" quarters, said the deal would demonstrate his company's technology to the wider market. He said he was in discussions with a number of major portals, many in the top 10, for other licensing deals.

Inspar's core product MediaPoster allows consumers to capture, compress and "upload" video and audio onto websites or send via email.

ZDTV, a 24-hour dedicated technology channel and website where viewers can send in live video and emails, will have the technology available on their website from the first week of July so users can upload messages to ZDTV in one standardised format. "Before ZDTV had to deal with inconsistent formats. Now they will get the formats they want," Mr Matlock said.

Both ZDTV, with 20 million subscribers, and ZDTV.com have been owned since January by Vulcan Ventures, the Washington-based investment vehicle of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Mr Allen has been building a network of technology and media companies.

Mr Matlock said he was focusing on marketing his product to online auction sites, personal dating services, photo sharing sites, online greeting card companies, and homepage developers.

As well as discussing deals with major portals, targeted because they could offer a number of these services, he was looking for "bundling" deals with video camera manufacturers where the product would be sold with each camera.

Strathmore chairman Phil Norman said this field was becoming lucrative as manufacturers looked to add value.

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