out from Manchester University was based

This spin out company from Manchester University was based on the research of its
founder, Alasdair Rawsthorne. Prior to the founding Alasdair had been a lecturer in
computer science for over 20 years, this after a spell in hardware product development
in industry. But the challenge addressed by Alisdair’s research which led to the founding
of the company was the product of 3 years spent both full and part time on sabbatical
in a company developing supercomputers. Changes in target processor architecture
and consequent rework led him to ask the question as to whether or not it was both
theoretically and practically possible to develop an approach to developing computer
instruction sets which was generic, transportable and of high performance.
This direct engagement with a market challenge led to a body of research and feasibility
studies by Alasdair and a series of student and post graduate research projects which he
supervised and led to the development of the technology platform. Alasdair himself played
a major role in dealing with potential investors. However the ‘killer’ application which
would attract the seed investment needed to form the company proved hard to identify.
A history of poorly performing ‘emulators’ had created a poor product perception; this
needed a detailed understanding of the technology to overcome discussions with potential
investors and early stage customers. It was finally through the direct interaction between
Alasdair, the lead investors (Pond Venture Partners and the ManTech Fund) and potential
major US customers in which Pond were instrumental in making the introductions and
setting up the early presentations that significant traction was obtained from the
market. Although the company gained the legal right to exploit the technology through
the licence and then assignment of the original inventions from the university, the real
knowledge transfer took place through Alasdair himself and the hiring of several of his
ex-students and colleagues into the company. The company set up its development centre
in Manchester in order to continue to recruit from the university, although the commercial
HQ was established close to major customers in the US, in California.
Douglas Hague (2006) in ‘Oxford Entrepreneurs’ described the frequent need for small
start up companies to “wiggle” (rather than drift) in the development and implementation
of their strategy.
This applied to Transitive. After the seed investment the final nature of the “killer
application” which spurred the growth of the company through several rounds of
investment needed several modifications before the first major revenue earning contracts
were agreed. The company now has major commercial partnerships with significant
market constituents such as IBM, Sun, Apple and Intel and in February 2008 celebrated
the milestone of achieving 10,000,000 commercial shipments worldwide.