From Growth Company Investor (November 2008)

Sky-high BIW ponders float

Construction software specialist BIW Technologies, whose software is being used to build the London Olympic Village, is considering an AIM flotation next year. Sources close to the Surrey-based company suggest a float is being 'mooted' for the first quarter of 2009, with investment bank Regent Associates advising at present but a nomad yet to be appointed.

BIW, which is also involved in what will be the world's tallest building in Dubai ..., became profitable two years ago. The company has funded all development from internal cash flow since last raising money from private investors in 2002 and aims to step up its expansion.

Finance director Bill Flind explains: "We're at the point where we want to expand internationally. We have an office in Dubai and we'd like to add Abu Dhabi, Qatar and even Saudi Arabia." Talks with advisers are still at "an early stages", but a fundraising is intended as part of the process.

Delivering its software as a service over the internet, BIW's technology allows numerous individuals in different locations to work simultaneously on a project, "so it's impossible for anyone to work on the wrong drawing," explains Flind.

As acceptance grows for such tools, the technology has more than 100,000 users and has been used on some high-profile projects, including the St Pancras Eurostar terminal, the headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Founcation in Seattle and the Dubai tower, rumoured to be over 1km tall.

BIW was founded in January 2000 by Flind, chief executive Colin Smith and chairman Andrew Boaden with £1m in angel funding, and the trio still own around 35 per cent of the business. "What we aimed to do then is exactly what we are doing today," recounts Flind, which implies it was one of the early exponents of the popular new software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.

(see BIW news release)