IPSNP Computing Inc., a Saint John-based startup developing advanced software for searching online databanks, has received $200,000 in funding to advance its lead product, HYDRA.

The company said in a press release that it has secured $150,000 in equity funding from private investors in the region and a $50,000 grant from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program.

"The new investments provide us with a solid foundation to expand our team, drive development of HYDRA, and bring new expertise to the board,” said CEO Chris Baker.

The company is developing what Baker calls "an industrial-strength version of the query engine," and stressed in an interview that HYDRA is more than just a premium version of Google. A standard search engine uses a series of keywords to scan a vast number of HTML pages. What HYDRA does is use semantics to search through thousands or even tens of thousands of databases that are accessible through the Internet, and is therefore a huge help to academic or scientific researchers who need to extract specific information from a seemingly endless network of databanks. In as little as a few minutes, HYDRA can produce results from these databanks and present them in a single spreadsheet that’s easy for the researcher to access and analyse.

Though there are several applications for the technology, IPSNP is now working on a product for the pharmaceutical industry and is in discussions to license to software to two pharma companies -- one in Boston and the other in Atlantic Canada.

Baker said the deal may not produce revenue in the short term but it would provide validation and invaluable insights into customers' requirements.

"We provide an enabling technology so people can do with our technology what they currently cannot do -- it would be too labour intensive," said Baker. "We're bringing the ability to ask complex questions to the domain expert, the one who wants to ask the question. There's no middle-man."

Baker added the technology is perfect for researchers who have not invested heavily in bioinformatic infrastructure (meaning the system needed for storing, retrieving and analyzing biological data) but still need to ask tough questions. The company says the market for bioinformatics is expected to reach $8.4 billion by 2014.

The $200,000 in funding is about enough to pay the company's developers for six to nine months, said Baker. He figures the company needs about $800,000 to $900,000 to roll out a working version of HYDRA. Adding in marketing costs, the cost will rise to about $1.5 million.

Baker, a professor of computer science at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, initiated the project four years ago when he was part of a group that received $1 million in funding to study semantic web services.

Last autumn, he teamed up with CTO Alexander Ryazanov and  Jeff Jennings, the Vice-President of Business Development, to launch IPSNP.