By Joe Guy Collier, The State, Columbia, S.C. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Feb. 23--Columbia-based Renaissance Interactive Holding Corp. is nearly out of business.
Jack Warner, who took over as chief executive in December, said this week the company has sold for an undisclosed price two key pieces of its business to newly-formed companies in Columbia.
Under the moves:
--Digital Systems Support, working with e-Wizards, has acquired a client list of about 200 companies that had been using Renaissance for services such as Web hosting, e-mail and data storage
--True Matter has taken over a client list of 15 companies that Renaissance worked with on custom Web development projects.
--Renaissance has one remaining major asset, its BizGear product. The company is trying to sell BizGear, a software package which helps build Web sites.
Once BizGear is sold or licensed to another company, Renaissance likely will go out of business, Warner said. Warner and a bookkeeper are the last two Renaissance employees.
Renaissance Interactive, the parent company of Renaissance and Impressa, shut down in late December with the layoff of about 45 employees.
The company, which landed $16 million in venture capital investments two years ago, once had more than 100 employees.
"We are in the process of winding down operations," Warner said. "At some point, the legal entity will be dissolved." Renaissance worked to transition clients to other service providers as quickly as possible, Warner said.
The principals of the new companies taking over the Renaissance business said they saw a chance to continue the work of a locally built technology firm.
Girish Yajnik, a University of South Carolina engineering professor, and Pete Cannon are the principals behind Digital Systems Support.
Cannon's PPC real estate firm owns the Sumter Street offices that housed Renaissance. He's also the father of former Renaissance chief executive Rich Cannon.
Digital Systems has contracted out Internet and computer networking services to e-Wizards, a student-run company in the USC Columbia Technology Incubator.
e-Wizards has 10 student employees and a pool of 20 more ready to join the company as business increases, said Rishabh Parikh, a USC senior and president of e-Wizards.
The company is in the process of contacting Renaissance's client list to transfer contracts to the new firm, he said.
"This is a big opportunity for us," Parikh said. "It should help out a lot of students by giving them on-the-job training." True Matter was formed by former Renaissance employees. Five of True Matter's six employees worked for the firm.
Rusty Farrell, president and chief executive of True Matter, said all 15 of the Renaissance clients have signed on with the new firm and the company is already pursuing new projects.
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(c) 2002, The State, Columbia, S.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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