Investors

PIB-d was created in Sep 2011 as a joint-venture between the private sector and two organisations in UK’s Higher Education sector. The company’s original investors were:

• The founders of Edentity Ltd, a start-up created in 2000 on the basis of a couple of patents (now – as of 2020 – both expired) in the identity management field. The company carried out advisory work for various public sector bodies for some years. Its activity culminated in the 2008 ‘Work Group on User-Centric Identity (and Personal Information) Management’ as sponsored by the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Technology Strategy Board. Edentity was wound up in 2013, having licensed all its IPR to PIB-d Ltd.
• Jisc (www.jisc.ac.uk) is a charity, with a goal which includes the words ‘the furtherance of lifelong education’. It’s also an organisation that works, on behalf of its university and college members, as: (i) a collective purchasing agent for certain IT-related services (e.g. provision of the JANET network, and access to online journals); and (ii) a lead for finding solutions to IT issues that are common among its membership. Jisc was originally invited to join the JV as a step towards the non-profit governance body required by the UCD infrastructure.
• The University of Hertfordshire(www.herts.ac.uk) is one of the UK’s ‘new’.. er universities. It serves over 24,500 students, of which more than 2,000 are from overseas, and has a thriving research facility. UH’s original role in the UCD consortium was to lead pilots, in a university, FE college and secondary school.

If the UCD project gathers pace again, and if PIB-d plays a development role under the terms of a concession contract with the proposed non-profit governance body, then it will clearly be necessary to look again at the equity structure of the company. The goal will be to ensure that the shareholdings of the various investors are a good match with their appetites for investment and risk, and/or with their desire to lead necessary areas of work