Signum Receives Major Funding from 3i and Schroder Signum Receives Major Funding from 3i and Schroder
HighWater Signum Limited, developer of the SureSign advanced digital fingerprinting technology, has today announced that it has received major venture capital funding from 3i plc and Schroder Ventures.
Under the terms of the financing, HighWater Designs (HighWater Signum's parent), 3i and Schroder Ventures become joint shareholders in a new company called Signum Technologies Ltd. The investment will allow Signum Technologies to fully exploit a wide range of applications for digital fingerprinting which include: Web and print publishing; stock photography and graphic illustration; multimedia production; security/ID applications and electronic commerce.
This innovative new technology, which is also known as digital watermarking or steganography, is viewed by industry analysts as being a key enabling technology in the control of intellectual property content such as images, video and audio material on the Internet.
As well as being deterrent against piracy, fingerprinting also allows responsible publishers and broadcasters to avoid breaking copyright laws by making it easier to establish ownership of copyright material held by them. Laurence Garrett of 3i said: "Our investment in Signum represents 3i's strategic initiative to promote growth in technological excellence and is poised to capitalise on the explosive growth of digital publishing and on-line commerce."
Kurt Björklund, investment manager with Schroder Ventures, endorsed these views, saying: "It is our belief that Signum's innovative technology is a key component for a wide range of content and information based businesses. As such, we expect Signum to become a significant force in the future."
Commenting on the announcement, Richard Warren, managing director of HighWater Designs, said: "This investment validates HighWater's decision to develop innovative software solutions and emphasises the tremendous potential that Signum's technology represents."
Signum Technologies, which began operating on July 1, is headed up by Graham Shaw, who joins the company as Managing Director. Mr. Shaw formerly held senior executive positions with Crosfield Electronics, Atex and SoftPress Systems and has extensive experience in both print and on-line publishing.
Dr. David Hilton, the inventor of SureSign fingerprinting, has been appointed Technical Director of the new company.
BACKGROUND: Fingerprinting is a technique whereby a digital data object, such as an image, is embedded with hidden identifying information which provides authors with the capability to track and monitor the use of their creative output on the Internet and other digital media. Although mainly intended for digital applications, fingerprinted data can also be recovered from images which are printed and/or copied.
Signum's technology, which was originally marketed as FBI, was devised by English mathematician and data compression expert, Dr. David Hilton. The subject of a number of patents, the Signum method is highly controlled and is based on precisely calculated algorithms that do not degrade the quality of the data object carrying the fingerprint.
The fingerprint is remarkably robust and secure, being impractical to remove once embedded. It is also designed to withstand the effects of editing and processing. Attempts to extract or modify the embedded fingerprint code will simply result in the material being destroyed or rendered unusable.