Follow-on financing for Webbuild

Webbuild assists small and medium sized companies with content software Keystone Archive

Content management software vendor, Webbuild AG, has raised SFr300,000 in a follow-on financing round.

Existing shareholders BVGroup and Venturevest, along with private (family and friends) investors, came back for a SFr300,000 top-up round for Langenthal-based Webbuild, a content management software vendor that offers a system for small and medium sized companies.

The capital is meant to help the company clear its products development cycle and establish distribution partners in Switzerland.

“We want to develop the market here first, but we do plan on expanding into Austria and Germany,” says CEO Yves-Alain Dufaux, who replaced company founder Theo Favetti late last year. The company signed its first Austrian distributor last month.

Webbuild employs 11 people at the moment and will hire four more by year end. Breakeven is expected in the coming months and a turnover of SFr1.3 million is budgeted for the year. Dufaux says he expects to double revenues for 2003.

Change of direction

Today 50 per cent of turnover is generated by consulting services. Dufaux wants to steer the firm towards a more traditional software licensing business model where 100 per cent of revenues are earned by licensing and support fees. This is a trend that larger content management software firms, such as Day Interactive and Obtree Technologies, are also following.

“The price of our software positions us for an easier sell than the higher end content management software vendors. At SFr15,000 Webbuild can be part of a marketing budget, as opposed to the IT budget, which tends to be under stricter spending limitations these days,” Dufaux told Swiss Venture Update.

by Valerie Thompson