Danish Financial newspaper reports on the sale of Henttilbud to North Media

The article (in Danish) is written by Peter Møller Christensen and reports on the exit itself and the 1CT model of investing and very hands-on management. Click here to read the article.

1CT's second fund, 1CT Equity II realizes its first exit

HentTilbud (http://www.henttilbud.dk), an internet service for house owners seeking craftsmen and vice versa, is sold to the Danish Media Group, North Media (http://www.northmedia.dk).

The exit comes after a 10-fold increase in valuation of the business over 12 months and 15 months after 1CTs initial investment. In the same period, the number of employees has gone from 5 to 25 and revenues have grown by similar proportions.

North Media has purchased the entire company in a pursuit to grow its on-line activities. At the same time, 1CT will remain involved in the continued growth of HentTilbud as a key resource and participant in an attractive earn-out.

To read the press release (in Danish) click here

1CT Portfolio company, Sitexploration (http://www.sitexploration.com) broke through the important goal of 1.000 users of which an increasing amount have converted to paying customers.

This is a result of the soft launch that Sitexploration performed in the late months of 2012, allowing its users – mostly SEO specialists - to benefit from a range of groundbreaking services related to link-analysis which is essential for any business that wishes to rank on Google.

As a valuable example of its capabilities, Sitexploration has assisted the other 1CT portfolio company, HentTilbud in its successful build-up of high ranking key-words.

EkstraBladet endorses Caramba Imaging

Caramba Imaging, one of 1CTs portfolio companies has successfully penetrated the newspaper industry as can be seen from the attached case story.

Here, the leading Danish daily, EkstraBladet, which is part of one of Denmark’s leading Publishing Groups, explain how Caramba has helped automate the image processing and enhancement procedures of the newspaper, fully integrated with the editorial systems and software already used.

The customer says: We have been using the service for almost a year. The quality is consistent and the software is extremely stable. For more information see the case story here or go to http://www.carambaimaging.com.

1CT has invested in Artificial Intelligence company a2i.

1CT has completed its 6th portfolio company investment. The investment is made from 1CTs second fund, 1CT Equity II.

The company is Danish a2i Systems ApS, a software company that develops industry disruptive solutions based on Artificial Intelligence.

Its first major success is a solution for fuel retailers. The solution significantly increases profitability without loss of volume.

Fuel is a commodity and the market in most countries is quite volatile with customers that are both very price sensitive and disloyal. Other pricing solutions in the market are rule based solutions, that can help analyze the vast amounts of data and serve as decision support to experienced fuel pricing managers. No other retail fuel pricing solution can predict customer behavior and optimize pricing without loss of volume.

For more information see: http://www.a2i.dk or contact 1CT Partner, Jonas Pilgaard at +45 2140 1070.

Review of 2011 and outlook for 2012

WeI’d like to wish you a prosperous 2012.

A short review of 1CT in 2011 and outlook for 2012 can be found here .

1CT is pleased to announce that a further round of commitments were completed for Ceranco 1CT our first fund.

The commitments were made by the existing investors and will be applied to the further develop the portfolio companies in the fund.

We are well aware of the current difficulties in the financial markets and appreciate this further commitment to 1CT, says Managing Partner, Søren Jonas Bruun.

Pressens Fællesindkøb (a central procurement organisation for the Danish Press) has named Caramba Imaging Partner of the Month

When it comes to impact in the Danish market, it doesn't come much better than a recommendation from Pressens Fællesindkøb. Making Partner of the Month is even better. With endorsements from Søndagsavisen and Ekstra Bladet, Caramba's services are highlighted as bringing high quality and consistency at a low price to print and online publishers.

Read the article at ddpff here or, when no longer available there, here .

With four portfolio companies sharing our offices, we have outgrown Sankt Annae Plads and are moving to Parken.

3 years have passed and we have enjoyed our offices under the roof at Sankt Annæ Plads immensely. Without exception, visitors were impressed with the view of the spires of Copenhagen. We have, however, now outgrown the space and we knew that it would take a special effort to beat those offices.

Our new and fully renovated offices in Parken, the national football stadium gives us double the space (over 800 Sq. m.) and, being on the 5th floor, a fantastic view of the football pitch. Luckily, matches and concerts take place primarily at the weekend or in the evening. We are pretty sure though that a lot of our staff and business partners will find a reason to pay us a visit around major games.

1CT, Realfiction, Caramba Imaging, HentTilbud and Sitexploration - a total of about 40 people - will be in place on Monday. All contact information remains unchanged.

Our new address is:

1CT Management ApS
Øster Alle 42, 5th Floor
2100 København Ø



Reception on October 27th at 3:00pm. Please check this link for more information

To celebrate our new premises and the 100 year birthday of two 1CT Partners (50 years each), we are inviting business partners and friends of the house to a reception on October 27th from 15:00 to 18:00. We hope to see you there.

Mindstorm technology was used by the judges to select the acts for the bootcamp section of the series

For the second time, Mindstorm delivered the technology that helped the UK’s X Factor judges to choose candidates in the X Factor bootcamp show. The show was broadcast on Saturday, September 24th, 2011 on ITV1.

Two years ago, Mindstorm’s Aurora interactive table was used by the judges to make the final selection of candidates during boot camp. This year, we upped the ante with a 2.2m multi-user, multi-touch, vertical Mindstorm surface, the Mindstorm iWall. Filming for this year’s session took place in August at Altitude 360 London at the top of Milbank Tower with breathtaking views over the Thames, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. Judges could not only view photos of the contestants, they could also review 250 crystal clear, high definition audition videos. The selection process involved simply dragging each contestant's video to a category until they had narrowed down the those who would make it to the next stage of boot camp - very effective, intuitive and exciting.

A video is available from the producers on YouTube. Look for the Mindstorm iWall about 6:21 into the show.

Interestingly, the buzz on Twitter after the show likened the iWall to the movie "Minority Report" where Tom Cruise manipulates data on a transparent wall. We like the association.