Lexington, KY - The infusion of $4.6 million in venture capital funds means local high-tech start-up Mersive Technologies is now in a position to step up its presence in the simulator display market. The company also hopes to increase staff as much as threefold over the next year.
"We've been a 10 person company for the last 18 months, doing a lot and going on all cylinders ... that we've shown the viability of the business model of what we're doing is the big reason for the continued investment," said Mersive CEO Randall Stevens. "We can easily double or triple our headcount in the coming year. In fact, we just added two new employees last week and I would expect a couple more to come on in the next 30 days."
A $4-million investment from Peoria-based private equity firm Hopewell Ventures, as well as renewed investments from Adena Ventures, the Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation and the Bluegrass Angels Venture Fund, will allow Mersive to continue to grow its business with military and educational customers in the simulation field for flight simulators, museum displays and other applications.
Stevens said the company had "great timing" in its decision to seek a second round of venture capital dollars. "I wouldn't want to start it right now, because I'm sure it is getting tighter and tighter," he said, adding that being a relatively new business makes Mersive particularly well poised.
"[These economic times] can be bad for incumbents, but can do some good for new entrants because they can come in and be competitive and gain ground during that time.
"It's always easier when you're a young, small, starting company. There's lots of opportunities Ö where incumbents may be weaker during this time or pulling back; we're trying to push forward and gain more ground [than we could] under normal circumstances," he said.
The company was founded in 2004 by Stevens, Stephen Webb and Dr. Christopher Jaynes, with a product line based on technology developed by Jaynes and Webb. At the time, Jaynes was a professor at UK. Dr. Jaynes' Lexington residency was a big factor in basing the company in Central Kentucky.
"Part of the success of this story is also a success story of taking some of the technology and things that were being developed at UK and spinning that out and starting a company," said Stevens, a UK graduate and Pikeville native.
That relationship with Kentucky will also lead to the creation of more local high-tech jobs, as Stevens said Mersive's anticipated new hires will encompass all areas of the business, from engineers to sales and liaisons, and help them all communicate with each other.
"The company is about four years old and in the last couple of years we've had a product on the market that served within in the simulation market and primarily military types of applications. It takes time and substantial investment to get in there, but we did that over the last couple of years and we're starting to see that market's responding very strongly. So part of the raising of the additional dollars is to make sure we can execute now on that ground work that we laid in that market and be able to respond to the customers," Stevens said.
But Mersive isn't content to sit in just one niche within the market. "We're a software company and we're very heavily involved in creating new technology and new software products are going to move forward so some of the dollars are also going to be used to invest in that," he added.
"We felt like we were on to something and we were able to go out midyear last year [in search of a second round of venture capital funding] Ö Hopewell from the get-go saw and believed in what we were doing, so we were on a path to get that round closed before the end of the year, which we did," Stevens said.
Mersive sought and received its first round of venture capital in 2006 and hopes the infused capital from this round will be the last they seek as customer demand will be able to carry Mersive from now on.