Monitise

Monitise didn’t follow a typical route to AIM. The business, which brings banking services to your mobile, needed an investor in it for the long term to get the platform up and running. The solution was corporate venturing.

Monitise began life in 2003 as part of the London Stock Exchange-listed tech giant Morse plc, which helped the founders negotiate deals with banks as part of a well-established entity. Monitise demerged onto AIM last summer. “Rather than your typical flotation, it was more of a graceful exit,” says CEO Alastair Lukies.

In one of only about a dozen similar transactions to have gone before, one share in Monitise was issued for every share in Morse (rather than selling Monitise when there was clear potential for the value to soar) ensuring shareholders didn’t end up missing out by giving them “a bet on each”. The business raised £21.4m in a share placing when it listed, and its MONILINK application is now being used by RBS, NatWest, Alliance & Leicester, First Direct and HSBC.

Monitise is also expanding internationally via licensing and joint ventures, as well as reaching out to the “unbanked population” and working on microfinance projects in developing nations. In 2006, Kofi Annan presented Monitise with the prestigious Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum in recognition of its potential global impact. A recent deal with Visa adds to its growing range of services.

Company stats Company: Monitise Founded: 2003 Founders: Alastair Lukies, Steve Atkinson Web:www.monitisegroup.com