Internet start-ups don't come much sharper than moreover.com. The site offers free access to news, anything from the South China Morning Post to Aberdeen's Press and Journal. Users simply click on any of 1,500 headlines to access their chosen article. 'We aim to kill the category,' says joint founder Nick Denton, 33, who compares the venture with amazon.com in its early days.
Denton was working as the FT's technology correspondent on America's West Coast when he decided that it would be 'more fun on the other side'.
So he quit his job in April 1998 and set up moreover.com with school friends, Angus Bankes and David Galbraith.
The trio used Denton's savings to develop news aggregating software and then went off to First Tuesday, an international networking club that matches would-be investors with internet entrepreneurs. Within days they had raised £1 million from a fund manager at Atlas Ventures, who was investing on his own account and took a 30% share of the company. 'In retrospect,' says Denton, 'it was too cheap.'
Denton is now in 'land-grab' time. If he can stake out a strong customer base, large corporates will be willing to pay for in-built links from news items to their own web sites. Denton is spending most of his time in the US and hopes to list the company on NASDAQ within the next few years.
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