You have to admire a tech entrepreneur who has written a book about currency reform and studied sculpture in Chicago. So it’s easy to be impressed by Jordan MacLeod, the CEO of Charlottetown-based Strue Inc. Not only has MacLeod penned New Currency, but he’s also leading a company that’s revolutionizing how data is stored on the cloud.
Strue has developed a Cloud File System that ensures that a client’s data isn’t jeopardized by relying on a single storage system. The Strue system protects data by fragmenting it and distributing it among several storage companies.
Strue is on a mission to help enterprises overcome the barriers to cloud adoption. “We’re radically different than what you see in the market today because we want to ensure that no single cloud provider can compromise a company’s data,” says MacLeod.
The entrepreneur will bring his venture to public view public next week, when he represents P.E.I. at the Pitching Den at the Invest Atlantic conference at the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax on Sept. 26. The other entrants are Afinin Labs of Newfoundland and Labrador, JumpStart720 of New Brunswick, and LeadSift of Nova Scotia. (Disclosure: I’m helping organize Invest Atlantic.)
Strue is also one of nine start-ups (including eight from the Maritimes) invited to meet with about 30 mentors from around the world at MentorCamp, which will take place on Sept. 24. Strue was launched several years ago when MacLeod and a colleague in Halifax were working on a solution to secure data for financial transactions; they came up with the idea to fragment the data and divvy it up among storage providers.
The pair began to work on the product, and eventually MacLeod bought out his partner. He brought in as new CTO Ian Cairns, whom MacLeod says has “built a Cloud File System that puts control of the data back into the users’ hands.” Strue has also hired Hubert Matthews, a PhD from Oxford University who has helped design the components and architecture. MacLeod envisions two more hires early in 2013.
The centre of the enterprise is MacLeod himself, a multi-faceted individual who divides his time between Charlottetown and London, England. He’s a co-founder of London-based consultancy Cornerstone Global Associates, whose founding managing director and partner is Lucian Hudson, the first director of e-communications for the British cabinet office. A senior consultant with the firm is Sue Black, a British tech guru and one of the most influential women in IT in Europe.
MacLeod is the author of the 2009 book New Currency: How Money Changes the World as We Know It. Written during the depth of the financial crisis, the book argues how a new currency can be integrated into the heart of our financial system to build a more creative, sustainable, and inclusive version of capitalism.
Among MacLeod’s other achievements, he has studied sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and been a guest lecturer at the University of Economics in Prague. MacLeod, Cairns, and Matthews plan to begin beta-testing Strue in October and have lined up two major companies to participate. The CEO says that as many as five other possible adopters are interested in the product; they hope to move it into the open market in the new year.
So far Strue has raised about $200,000 in funding, including contributions from MacLeod, angel investors, and Innovation PEI. MacLeod will soon be looking for a seed round of funding, which he estimates will amount to about $250,000.