Software venture Hamsard, which joined AIM in May with a £3m funding at 43.6p, posted pleasing preliminaries to May. Fronted by chairman and chief executive James Metcalf, Hamsard reported bumper turnover of £7.7m (£4.6m), and pre-tax profits of £505,000 (£53,000).

The company provides software and services in three growth areas – network security, business intelligence and managed services. Business intelligence, also known as ‘interactive data visualisation’, and network security are two high-growth markets. Business intelligence software is crucial for large organisations needing important data interpreted ‘in real time’, whilst the network security market is burgeoning on compliance issues and the rising risk of security breaches.

Metcalf was keen to stress that growth will emanate from a ‘channel strategy’, where third party partners sell Hamsard’s products as part of their own offering. Hamsard has already signed up a number of strategic partners, and brought on new customers in the UK and USA, core markets alongside Europe and the CIS. For instance, Clarity Technology was appointed as a key UK distributor, and Hamsard also formalised a distribution deal with majority owned subsidiary Panopticon to market business intelligence products in North America and Europe. Intriguingly Panopticon, which enjoyed a massive leap in sales from £207,000 to £2.6m last year, has already signed a lucrative deal with Reuters.

‘Its challenging out there, but we are fortunate in that we seem to be in the niches that are hotter than most,’ commented Metcalf. Hamsard looks like a decent growth situation. Buy.

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