$5m injection to fuel Prism

By DANIEL RIORDAN

AMP Private Capital and Caltech Capital Partners have invested $5 million in Prism Group Holdings.

Trading as Prism Software, the company supplies software and web press monitoring equipment for the printing and packaging industry in 15 countries, employing 125 people in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Founded in 1989 by Kiwi Chris Johnson and now based in Slough, an hour out of London, Prism still employs 10 staff in New Zealand who do most of its research and development from offices in Auckland's Karangahape Rd.

New Zealand general manager Robin Day said the local research team was retained despite strong incentives to move offshore.

"It would be more economical to take incentives being offered by other countries to do development," he said.

"But we have a base established here, we have a very good pool of expert developers, and that's a source of industry knowledge and intellectual capital that would be hard to replace."

Prism will use the $5 million to continue its rapid growth of recent years.

Last year's sales were worth $20 million and the company expected to do $30 million over the next 12 months, said Mr Day.

It planned to break into more countries, and incorporate internet and e-commerce technologies into its products.

Mr Day said he had attended the recent four-yearly Drupa printing trade show in Dusseldorf, where there had been "extraordinary interest" in Prism's products from new markets in Asia and South America.

The deal, by joint venture partners AMP and Caltech, is Prism's second round of institutional money, following an investment from Australia's St George Bank and Nanyang Ventures in 1997 to help fund Prism's UK expansion.

Caltech managed that deal, and Caltech's Wendie Hall was the company's chairwoman from 1997 to early 1999.

Caltech's Douglas Paul joins the Prism board following the latest investment.

Since its first deal 18 months ago, AMPPC has invested more than $100 million, about half its committed capital, although AMPPC head Martin Turner said there was no real cap on its investments and there continued to be good flow of investment opportunities in New Zealand.