Rococo secures €3.17m capital

Dublin wireless start-up Rococo Software has secured £2.5 million (€3.17 million) in first round funding from Trinity Venture Capital.

The company also gained two new board members, Mr Rory Quirke of Trinity Venture Capital, and Mr Joe Cunningham, a senior executive with Aldiscon and Apion, who becomes a non-executive director.

The company, formed in February 2000 by three former senior managers at Iona Technologies, develops wireless infrastructure software that enables people to create "ad hoc" networks - "where people and things form instant networks," said Rococo chief executive Mr Sean O'Sullivan.

Rococo's software acts as middleware to link laptops, mobile phones, handhelds and other wireless devices into communication networks, using networking standards such as Bluetooth and 802.11.

The funding round is intended to help Rococo market its first product, called Impronto, which will be launched in the autumn.

The round "is designed to last us into early 2003", said Mr O'Sullivan. Rococo's initial market is the US, where he hopes "to win developer hearts and minds" - a successful strategy for Iona in its early days.

"Our first product is targeted at Java developers, so the US is the target in the first push," Mr O'Sullivan said.

"However, Asia and Europe are potentially more important in the longer term."

Mr O'Sullivan, who was vice president of professional services at Iona and also headed its funded research and development projects division, said Rococo's parentage was clearly discernable in its focus - like Iona - on middleware.

"A lot of lessons learned at the wired side in Iona were applicable in the wireless area of Rococo," he said. "We felt very much at home."

Mr O'Sullivan said the company has been self-funded to date through consultancy work, including two major online bank projects, which brought in about $1 million in Rococo's first year of operation.