The Innovators: Synapse receives £250,000 to develop technology
A BUSINESS spreadsheet collaboration company based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus has been awarded an Innovate UK ‘Smart Grant’ of close to £250,000 to diversify its business and grow to more than 100 employees within the next five years.
Started in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Brian Donnelly, Synapse Information currently employs 20 people. Its largest clients include a High Street bank and a leading Swedish furniture retailer.
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The £248,691 Smart Grant award will provide 45% of the total research and development costs for ‘Cloud CFO’; a new technology that will enable the group finance function to automate the consolidation process at both entity and group level.
Donnelly, CEO of Synapse said: “Our existing spreadsheet collaboration product enables an unlimited number of users from one company to work on the same spreadsheet simultaneously, while always providing one version of the truth.
“The new technology that this Innovate UK Smart Grant will enable us to develop is for the group corporate finance team and the heads of finance from each entity.
“Rather than the consolidation of group finances being such a painstaking task at the end of each month, Cloud CFO will identify the relevant information from individual group entities’ financial data and automate the process.
Group finance professionals can then focus their time on the strategic direction of their business and the available reports will enable them to make reliable, effective and informed decisions based on real-time accurate data.”
The concept for the new technology has been developed by Synapse’s team of software engineers, with input from Tineke Booth, the company’s finance and operations manager, who recently joined the start-up from KPMG.
