Building A Software Company From Toulouse, France: Jacques Soumeillan, CEO Of Cameleon Software (Part 4)

Sramana: Tell me more about your decision to take the company public toward the end of the 1990s.

Jacques Soumeillan: It was just before the bubble, and I know that some of our U.S.-based competitors went public. They were not much bigger than we were, they had perhaps $20 million in revenue. We went public because we were expending a lot of resources developing international activities. We realized that we needed more funding to implement our international strategy.

We looked at all of our options, including VCs. At that time the stock exchange was looking for innovative companies like ours that were profitable with at least some international play. We had all the right criteria to be a public company at that time. We were listed right at the beginning of the bubble, and it was very crazy.

Sramana: What were the mechanics of taking the company public?

Jacques Soumeillan: We went public in November 1999. We were looking to raise €8 million. Our competitor in the U.S. raised $150 million in their IPO. We decided to do the IPO just before the bubble. Perhaps if we had waited another two months, we could have raised 10 times the amount of money that we raised.

Sramana: Why would you want to raise €100 million on a €10 million revenue level?

Jacques Soumeillan: I did not want to do that much. We were only looking for €8 million. The markets were indicating that those options existed. It was the beginning of the Internet, and we were announcing our product for the Internet. That created a lot of buzz. Our intent was to use the money raised to expand our international operations and earn some money for the Internet, and we needed only €8 million to make that happen.

Sramana: What happened after your IPO?

Jacques Soumeillan: We expanded the company to the U.S. in Chicago and San Diego. We also expanded to Vancouver and London, and we bought a company in Germany. These were all moves to expand the self-configuration product. The sales growth in 2000 was more than 100 percent. Unfortunately, after September 11, we had to face a very big recession in our business. Very quickly we had to reduce the headcount of the company and close some of our offices around the world due to the bubble collapse. We were right in the middle of the bubble.

Our technology was good. We were able to address very good customers and we had very good references. The problem is that companies around the world stopped their investments and projects. We spent 2002 and 2003 reducing the scope of our company. We returned to profitability in 2004 and have remained there since.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Building A Software Company From Toulouse, France: Jacques Soumeillan, CEO Of Cameleon Software
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