Tech startup of the month.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: High Tech - Company Profile

INITIAL LIGHTBULB: While running Global Source Technology in Broomfield circa 2000, Rob Pries and Paul Pewterbaugh incorporated Teknovation with plans to develop a golf calculator. This plan never quite got off the ground, as the pair were busy sourcing and trading excess and end-of-life IT products with Global Source. But a second idea emerged: utilizing their international contacts to source hardware to make digital closed-circuit television systems, like you see used for security in banks and restaurants. By late 2002, the startup was dominating Pries and Pewterbaugh's time (now the company's COO and president/CEO, respectively) and Global Source went onto the back burner as Teknovation ramped up. "Teknovation has eclipsed the parent," said Pewterbaugh. "This has grown so fast and there's so much opportunity in this biz that we've channeled a lot of resources from Global Source into Teknovation."

The company joined the CTEK incubator in early 2003 and ramped up sales and marketing of five different products--a pair of digital recorders and a trio of relevant software applications--through a network of resellers.

In September, Teknovation finalized a deal to provide digital closed-circuit TV (CCTV) products to corporate music supplier Muzak, which has enjoyed a good deal of success since entering the security market in 2001. Teknovation now has 20 employees (17 in Longmont and three at a European branch in the United Kingdom) and is currently eyeing the possibility of a third office in Prague.

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FINANCING: Pries, Pewterbaugh and three other Global Source co-founders financed the Teknovation startup. The company is pursuing an infusion of $500,000 to $1 million in outside capital to "accelerate software development and engineering," said Pewterbaugh.

IN A NUTSHELL: In August 2002, Teknovation began marketing its catalog of five products: the PC-based AudioVision recorder and the embedded AVX recorder (which are otherwise identical, with 16 channels that can handle up to 120 frames per second and have 120 gigabytes of storage); TekVision, the integrated application that interfaces the PC with the recorders; and PeopleCounter and TrafficVision, applications that count the number of people or cars passing a designated location. Dealers typically sell Teknovation's recorders for $4,000 to $6,000.

"Because we came to...