Tadpole has been struggling to raise money for some months having seen a placing and open offer stymied by the clamming up of the credit markets in the second half of 2007 and the resultant effect on investor confidence. Now, desperate to fund the further development of its sales capabilities to support its applications streaming software, Tadpole hopes to be able to tell its long suffering investors it has secured enough funding to stave off the threat of having to place the company into administration.
The company's funding problem was starkly illustrated at Tadpole's interims which showed a cash outflow of £1.64m in the first half and a cash balance of just £133,000 at the end of March.
Tadpole's fall from grace has been long and hard. The company has been around for 25 years but spent the first 20 years of its life trying to perfect its portable workstations. A switch to software provision earlier this decade caught investor attention but has yet to yield tangible rewards. In the first half of this year revenues were just £813,000 with losses stacking up at £1.5m.
Management is keeping the faith with its application streaming technology and believes the change of name to Endeavors will allow for better marketing and branding. It also seems to believe Endeavors is about to make a significant breakthrough, heralding a recent deal with NTT Europe.
Changing names is less important than raising funds but management appear keen to put the past behind them in more ways than one. Turning profitable would be a better trick though, and welcome relief to Tadpole's shareholders.
