In the beginning
The story starts in the early 90's when Stephen Holmes, the current Chief Executive of Mirago and his associates, acquired Compsoft plc, a small UK software house who developed network database engines. The company was fuelled with the requisite funding to promote a long term R & D strategy and invest in the acquisition of skills related to emerging data management techniques.
The catalyst for Mirago lay at the heart of Compsoft's software. The fundamental component of any database is an indexing engine that stores, manipulates and renders a variety of data types. In 1996 Stephen Holmes and Technical Director Derek Preston, commenced a project to apply these core indexing techniques to vast repositories of data, notably on the Internet.
Following a 3 year R & D project, trials commenced with robot and indexing software and the first UK index was built. As this was clearly a separate business to the rest of the company, Mirago plc was formed as a vehicle for the project and the lead members of the team joined this new company in 1999.
A Signpost at the Crossroads
At that stage of the industry the concept of revenue, let alone profits was not normally mentioned in the same sentence as Search Engines. What was clear however, was that the crossroads where users are looking for information and site operators are looking for users, was a very useful place to own a signpost.
As early as 1999 project discussions started regarding the inclusion of paid for listings within the search results. Even at that stage, user feedback demonstrated resistance to the idea. The diehard search engine purists did not like money interfering with the integrity of search results. This groundswell of opinion was however to change surprisingly quickly.
Time to grow
The run-up to the millennium heralded strong interest in the Internet Sector. With an established technology and an embryonic revenue model, it was clearly time to take Mirago forward.
In 2000, Mirago secured £5 million of funding for 25% of the equity. The new investors were headed up by Jim Slater the legendary investment guru, who brought in an investment fund run by his son, who in turn introduced Johnston Press. Johnston Press are a major UK regional newspaper group and were a particularly good fit for Mirago, as both companies shared a vision of regionalised services.
Sustained Revenue!
In 2000, Mirago resurrected its plans to introduce paid for listings. The scaleable M3 (Mirago Media Manager) system was developed in-house as a turnkey ppc solution and was load tested with high volumes of simultaneous queries. The 'Featured Site' service was launched on the back of this technology in 2001. By the end of 2002 more than 1000 advertisers were active, including many high profile brands.
A National and Regional index was launched in France late in 2002 followed by National indexes in Spain and Germany. Substantial improvements in the search algorithms were introduced at this time and Mirago's stated objective was to become the deepest and most populated index in each of those countries.
Today and Tomorrow
Featured Site services were launched in France and Germany in Q3 of 2003, so a concerted campaign has commenced in those countries to attract Advertisers and Search Partners. Two more Index Inclusion programs have also been launched, notably Trusted Feeds and Platinum Listings. These have been joined by the first of Mirago's Enterprise Indexing products, a Hosted Indexing Service.
Revenues quadrupled in 2003, as the Mirago team concentrated on growing their existing National services. Apart from continually refining the search algorithms, there are advanced plans to ship Mirago indexing software for Intranets and LANs with support for popular enterprise file formats.
Now in 2004, it is clear that Mirago has emerged as a viable new business from the maelstrom of Internet ideas and schemes which were abundant in the late 90s. Its plans are to consolidate its position and ensure it continues to adapt its business models to the new requirements of users and partners.
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