<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>March 11, 2009
sme spotlight
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Tech firm moves full speed ahead
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Progeniq's accelerated computing solutions are in demand amid downturn </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Elizabeth Wilmot
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Progeniq's CEO Darran Nathan, 29, (left) and vice-president of business development Chua Teck Hiong, 30, with the BioBoost. Products like the BioBoost that Progeniq develops can shorten data processes that take 10 days to less than a day, the company says. -- ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->MOST entrepreneurs who make a mark in the tech field start on computers at an early age, but Mr Darran Nathan puts them all to shame.
Five years old - that was when the chief executive of Progeniq got his first computer, and the lure of the machines has not grown any weaker for the 29-year-old over the years.
'I've always been interested in computers and computing in general, and my IT knowledge was mostly self-taught,' he said.
His interest - call it passion, really - has fuelled an ambitious target: 'Our goal is to be the major home-grown IT company of Singapore in the new decade and years to come.'
A lofty goal, but Mr Nathan has long been clear on how he can make a difference.
'I would say for entrepreneurs, they are always thinking about what they can do differently, what they can do for an impact,' he said.
Starting up
HIS road to Progeniq started modestly enough. He was a computer engineering student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
After graduating from the polytechnic in 2000, he served his National Service before joining the same school as a researcher for about a year.
The pieces fell into place in 2005 when he got in touch with Mr Kelvin Lim, a former classmate from Woodlands Secondary School.
They decided to join forces and start Progeniq, which works with hardware and software to speed up computing for its clients.
Under an assistance scheme that provides seed money to young entrepreneurs to turn their innovative ideas into businesses, Spring Singapore and Ngee Ann Polytechnic gave Progeniq $66,000.
With a further $16,000 from their own savings, Mr Nathan and Mr Lim were on their way.
'We had a very small amount of start-up capital, but it was enough to start things moving, basically to get things kick-started for the first few months,' said Mr Nathan.
The duo rented space at the National University of Singapore's Prince George's Park 'for $3 per sq ft' before moving to their current office at Bukit Batok East last year.
Customers came from referrals and contacts made at IT conferences.
'We gave a lot of talks at workshops and conferences. Examples include the HP-Cast conference (by Hewlett Packard), and the Apple World Wide Developers Conference,' said Mr Nathan.
Their early days were not without problems.
'Most customers and partners are out of Singapore, so we have to travel a lot. We clocked over half a million air miles last year alone,' said Mr Nathan.
Staff numbers have grown slowly, from the two pals at start-up to 12 now. The local staff do mainly research and development work.
'Culture-wise, we're very Silicon Valley tech- oriented, as evident from the pool table in the office, the casual wear and the relaxation area labelled 'brain repair'. It's common for staff to blast music in the office spontaneously,' said Mr Nathan.
'Everyone knows we're part of something big, so they're willing to put in full effort to build the business, without anyone needing to abide by fixed working hours.'
Products and company growth
THE company provides hardware and software solutions and speeds up intensive computer applications.
The vice-president of business development, Mr Chua Teck Hiong, 30, said a CPU - a central processing unit that does the computer's number crunching - might take an hour to run a particular problem or process.
'Using our accelerator, they (customers) can plug it in to their data centre or their existing computer infrastructure and when the problem is encountered, it is seamlessly passed through our hardware and it takes maybe minutes to complete instead,' he said.
He whipped out the BioBoost, an accelerator product developed for the life sciences industry which they started out by targeting.
'They are researchers who run genome researches. So when they have to do a search, it's on a very huge database, so that takes a very, very long time,' he said. For some problems, the processing time has been slashed from 10 days to less than a day, he added.
The company has other products for other industries, such as the RenderBoost for the CGI animation industry.
Sales figures are confidential, but Mr Nathan said the company had recorded year-on-year growth of 100 per cent since its incorporation.
The firm opened an office in California last year, which does mainly sales and marketing.
The products are manufactured there and shipped back here. They are then packaged by the local staff and shipped to overseas clients, including in Germany, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia.
'It's definitely an interesting adventure...something that's quite different from the typical career experience. I'm enjoying this,' said Mr Nathan.
Upside of downturn
EVEN the downturn has not fazed him.
'The financial crisis has given a business boost to us because we're saving companies cash. Hence a lot of companies are starting to engage us to develop accelerated infrastructure solutions instead of previously buying CPUs to solve their problems,' he said.
His company plans to move into the animation industry with its RenderBoost accelerators.
'When companies like Pixar create animated movies like Toy Story, it usually takes a lot of time to create the frames and actual images. We speed up that process,' he said. [email protected]
sme spotlight
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Tech firm moves full speed ahead
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Progeniq's accelerated computing solutions are in demand amid downturn </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Elizabeth Wilmot
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
Progeniq's CEO Darran Nathan, 29, (left) and vice-president of business development Chua Teck Hiong, 30, with the BioBoost. Products like the BioBoost that Progeniq develops can shorten data processes that take 10 days to less than a day, the company says. -- ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->MOST entrepreneurs who make a mark in the tech field start on computers at an early age, but Mr Darran Nathan puts them all to shame.
Five years old - that was when the chief executive of Progeniq got his first computer, and the lure of the machines has not grown any weaker for the 29-year-old over the years.
'I've always been interested in computers and computing in general, and my IT knowledge was mostly self-taught,' he said.
His interest - call it passion, really - has fuelled an ambitious target: 'Our goal is to be the major home-grown IT company of Singapore in the new decade and years to come.'
A lofty goal, but Mr Nathan has long been clear on how he can make a difference.
'I would say for entrepreneurs, they are always thinking about what they can do differently, what they can do for an impact,' he said.
Starting up
HIS road to Progeniq started modestly enough. He was a computer engineering student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
After graduating from the polytechnic in 2000, he served his National Service before joining the same school as a researcher for about a year.
The pieces fell into place in 2005 when he got in touch with Mr Kelvin Lim, a former classmate from Woodlands Secondary School.
They decided to join forces and start Progeniq, which works with hardware and software to speed up computing for its clients.
Under an assistance scheme that provides seed money to young entrepreneurs to turn their innovative ideas into businesses, Spring Singapore and Ngee Ann Polytechnic gave Progeniq $66,000.
With a further $16,000 from their own savings, Mr Nathan and Mr Lim were on their way.
'We had a very small amount of start-up capital, but it was enough to start things moving, basically to get things kick-started for the first few months,' said Mr Nathan.
The duo rented space at the National University of Singapore's Prince George's Park 'for $3 per sq ft' before moving to their current office at Bukit Batok East last year.
Customers came from referrals and contacts made at IT conferences.
'We gave a lot of talks at workshops and conferences. Examples include the HP-Cast conference (by Hewlett Packard), and the Apple World Wide Developers Conference,' said Mr Nathan.
Their early days were not without problems.
'Most customers and partners are out of Singapore, so we have to travel a lot. We clocked over half a million air miles last year alone,' said Mr Nathan.
Staff numbers have grown slowly, from the two pals at start-up to 12 now. The local staff do mainly research and development work.
'Culture-wise, we're very Silicon Valley tech- oriented, as evident from the pool table in the office, the casual wear and the relaxation area labelled 'brain repair'. It's common for staff to blast music in the office spontaneously,' said Mr Nathan.
'Everyone knows we're part of something big, so they're willing to put in full effort to build the business, without anyone needing to abide by fixed working hours.'
Products and company growth
THE company provides hardware and software solutions and speeds up intensive computer applications.
The vice-president of business development, Mr Chua Teck Hiong, 30, said a CPU - a central processing unit that does the computer's number crunching - might take an hour to run a particular problem or process.
'Using our accelerator, they (customers) can plug it in to their data centre or their existing computer infrastructure and when the problem is encountered, it is seamlessly passed through our hardware and it takes maybe minutes to complete instead,' he said.
He whipped out the BioBoost, an accelerator product developed for the life sciences industry which they started out by targeting.
'They are researchers who run genome researches. So when they have to do a search, it's on a very huge database, so that takes a very, very long time,' he said. For some problems, the processing time has been slashed from 10 days to less than a day, he added.
The company has other products for other industries, such as the RenderBoost for the CGI animation industry.
Sales figures are confidential, but Mr Nathan said the company had recorded year-on-year growth of 100 per cent since its incorporation.
The firm opened an office in California last year, which does mainly sales and marketing.
The products are manufactured there and shipped back here. They are then packaged by the local staff and shipped to overseas clients, including in Germany, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia.
'It's definitely an interesting adventure...something that's quite different from the typical career experience. I'm enjoying this,' said Mr Nathan.
Upside of downturn
EVEN the downturn has not fazed him.
'The financial crisis has given a business boost to us because we're saving companies cash. Hence a lot of companies are starting to engage us to develop accelerated infrastructure solutions instead of previously buying CPUs to solve their problems,' he said.
His company plans to move into the animation industry with its RenderBoost accelerators.
'When companies like Pixar create animated movies like Toy Story, it usually takes a lot of time to create the frames and actual images. We speed up that process,' he said. [email protected]
