Auckland software firm joins US elite

By SIMON COLLINS and PAUL BRISLEN

Auckland-based graphics software developer Right Hemisphere has made it on to a list of America's 200 most innovative private firms.

The list, drawn up by a web-based innovation network, Always-On, was based on investors' choices of fast-growing companies with "game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players".

A final shortlist of 100 will be named in early July and will be eligible to give a "CEO pitch" at an innovation summit at California's Stanford University on July 13-15.

Although still majority-owned in New Zealand, Right Hemisphere appointed a US-based chief executive, Michael Lynch, in 2000 and employs 20 sales and marketing staff in the US, 35 development staff in Auckland and five people in a software company in Russia.

More than 80 per cent of its $5 million annual revenue comes from graphics software for US aerospace and car makers, including Boeing, Ford, Northrop, Pratt and Whitney, Lockheed Missiles and Space Systems and Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratories.

Late last year it became the first New Zealand company to be funded by Silicon Valley's Sequoia Capital, the venture firm that funded Apple, Cisco, Yahoo and Google. Sequoia partner Bob Cohn now chairs Right Hemisphere's board.

"They typically only invest in companies they believe can grow to US$1 billion companies," said Auckland-based president Mark Thomas.

"Everything that we do now is measured against that future ...

"It's about planning infrastructure. When you set up any sort of infrastructure or information system or marketing deals, you think: is it scalable, or are we creating a half-way solution?"

The company is one of six to be advised by a high-tech "beachhead" opened by NZ Trade and Enterprise in Silicon Valley last year.

For a fee of $23,000 a year, member companies get advice and business introductions from a high-powered advisory board of expatriate New Zealanders and Americans in the high-tech sector, and the services of an American business development manager and former Intel executive, David Mayes. They can also "hot-desk" in a serviced office when in Silicon Valley, or hire offices elsewhere in the US at a subsidised rate for the first year.

A founder of Waikato agricultural software firm Xenacom, Heather McEwen, said she almost doubled the price of her products after consulting the beachhead advisory board.

HortResearch chief executive Paul McGilvary said he planned to appoint a staff member to look for collaborative opportunities in the US, probably based at the beachhead.

Similar high-tech beachheads have been set up in Singapore and Britain, and Information Technology Minister Paul Swain said after a recent Middle East trade mission that he would like to see one in Dubai.

A marine industry beachhead has been established in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A food and beverage beachhead is being considered for Tokyo.

Trade and Enterprise's total budget for beachheads in the coming financial year is just over $3 million.

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