THE story of the Scottish business scene is littered with examples of firms built up on exciting innovations before ultimately being sold to overseas-based owners, often making their founders very wealthy in the process.
But how many of those business people return to the scene of their success and attempt to do it again? Scots-based entrepreneurs Robin Knox and Paul Walton are aiming to do precisely that.
In 2016 the duo made a successful exit from their first technology venture they had established just three years before, with the sale of retail and hospitality payments business Intelligent POS for what is understood to have been a seven-figure sum. By that stage IPOS, which was sold to the Swedish payments giant iZettle, had around 1,000 customers.
Now they are back with a new idea and have bold ambitions to go with it.
Boundary, which Mr Knox and Mr Walton are planning to launch in mid-2019, will seek to create a middle ground in the market for smart home security products, somewhere between the expensive systems plagued by bad reviews and the bottom end of the market, where they claim the technology is not so robust. And they have big ambitions for the venture, believing their system will be installed in 100,000 homes within four years, by which time annual revenues will be in the region of £6 million.
There are plans to raise £1.5m to bring the product to market, with the founders investing £300,000 of their own cash in the project. Their intention is to create a significant amount of jobs, without specifying an exact number. It is certainly a lot to achieve for any new business from a standing start, especially in a climate where Brexit uncertainty is weighing on investment.
However, with the success of IPOS behind them, the wise money would be surely be on the entrepreneurs pulling it off again. That they are building their new business in Scotland should also be welcome.
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