Adelaide start-up Incriptus sets sights on $1.5m funding round

An Adelaide-based tech start-up is looking to raise a further $1.5 million in funding to help it crack the US market after sealing $750,000 in backing.

Incriptus has raised the cash via the The Australian Small Scale Offerings Board, which seeks to connect investors with promising early-stage businesses.

The company developed a data storage system that allows users to backup and retrieve data through a simple user interface.

The concept was originally developed by five former Motorola employees in 2005 before being launched as a business, then called Memory Box, in 2008.

Incriptus’ clients include businesses, government departments and universities.

The business has established a US office at Boulder in Colorado and will use the money to further boost its global growth.

Around 30 Australian-based investors have a stake in Incriptus through two previous funding rounds and the founders retain a majority share of the business.

“ASSOB has provided us with good exposure – it has cost more than if we did it ourselves but it’s had good results,” Trevor Glen, CEO of Incriptus tells StartupSmart.

“The first two rounds of funding took a while to do and the world economy is a bit different now, so we expect it to be more difficult third time around.

“But we are confident we have an investable concept. The data storage industry is growing by 60% a year. There will be 50 times more data in 2020 than today and it will need to be stored somewhere.

“The sooner we get the extra funding the better. We want to expand in the US and add new features to the technology. We recently had our first investor night which gave us some great leads. “

Glen says he hopes to have funding secured by the end of the year, to be followed by a sale of the whole business in the future.

“We want to push into the global market but in the longer term we are looking at a trade sale of the company,” he says.

“We know the channels we need to be in but it’s hard to get there.

“We don’t have the resources to be the number one in the world but an IT company could do a lot with this technology. We’re aiming for that within three years.”