KEY POINTS:
The Wellington software company OpenCloud has secured almost $15 million in funding in what is probably the biggest venture capital deal for a New Zealand company.
The US$10.25 million ($14.85 million) has been put up by a consortium of venture capital investors comprising No 8 Ventures of Wellington, telecommunications giant Motorola and British company Advent Venture.
"I think this would be the biggest early stage venture capital deal for a New Zealand company to date,"said No 8 managing director Jenny Morel.
The money will be used to develop and market OpenCloud's products internationally.
The company, which relocated its head office to Britain last year, specialises in software which helps telecommunications network services to link to a wide range of computer equipment.
The company's flagship product is a platform that allows the rapid, reliable deployment of phone services, such as voice mail, written in common programming language Java.
The company's offering is picked to become a leading international standard programming platform for services that are expected to flourish over the next few years as telecommunications and computer networks converge.
OpenCloud recently secured its first major deployment of the technology with Vodafone Spain and has other major contracts in Europe and Japan.
