From Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly (February 19, 2007, p. 1)

Software firm ready to roll out product

by Derrick Gingery

   A Fort Wayne Internet security company is ready to bring its software to market after raising local funding for distribution and sales.

    David Corcoran, CEO of TrustBearer Labs LLC, raised $500,000 to begin the push for his TrustBearer software, which acts as a security conduit between a computer or other device and a Web site.

    Some of the money will go toward research and development, but most will go toward distribution, marketing and sales.

    “A lot of investors invest in companies with ideas,” Corcoran said. “We’re pretty much close to having a product to launch and already have customers.”

    TrustBearer Labs is located in the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center. The company has experience in “smart” cards and other security devices and has worked with well-known companies like Apple Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Xerox Corp.

    The TrustBearer software avoids the use of a username and password to log on to a Web site and functions through the Internet, rather than forcing a user to install more software on his or her computer hard drive. The program can be used with smart-card, fingerprint-scanning and other devices.

    The software has been patented, and Corcoran is looking for companies that will purchase a technology license. He already has talked to some banks, health-care institutions and major corporations.

    “We’re picking the top three to five that may be the most visible,” he said. “We would be essentially selling through them.”

    TrustBearer Labs plans to remain in Fort Wayne as it continues to grow, Corcoran said. The company is an affiliate of Identity Alliance, which was founded in 2003.

    The $500,000 was essentially what was needed to begin marketing the software, Corcoran said. He could not talk about who was investing in the company, but he said all of the funding came from the Fort Wayne region. A grant from outside the area also was received as part of the fundraising effort.

    The Imagineer Fund, a seed fund that is part of FourthWave LLC in Fort Wayne, made a $100,000 equity investment.

    It is the fourth deal overall for the Imagineer Fund, but the first software-company investment the fund has made. FourthWave Director of Special Projects Karen Goldner said Corcoran has avoided the problem of timing that can plague software companies.

    “We’d not done any IT (information technology) yet,” she said. “We were impressed with how close they were to market.”

    FourthWave’s small-business seed fund last year was an investor in a $1.35-million private placement for BioDuct LLC, a biomedical company working on knee-repair technology.

    One of the problems economic development officials have run into as they push for more business development in Fort Wayne is access to capital. Indiana has a below-average track record in attracting venture-capital dollars, which, officials say, is part of the infrastructure needed to sustain small businesses as they grow.

    The amount of venture capital spent in Indiana decreased last year from 2005, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree Report. About $69 million was spent in 2006 in 13 deals that were reported, while $105 million was spent in 2005 in 11 deals.

    However, the fourth quarter of 2006 saw $35 million in investment, the most since the first quarter of 2005, and the second most since the third quarter of 2001.

    An angel network to help startups get off the ground was created in Fort Wayne early last year. Last fall, Ruffolo Benson LLC created the Main Street Venture Fund, which will provide mezzanine and equity capital for investments in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio. It is looking for more-established companies that need additional investment to continue growing.