We are currently thinking about how to rebuild our start-up map at Electronics Weekly, a map placing all the start-ups we know of in the UK electronics industry.
It raises many questions, not least of which is when a start-up stops being a start-up. Is it when the VCs get their return or when the firm starts to be cash positive or when the firm has more than one product available? It matters because we have to have a way to decide who to include in the map and who to remove from it.
In the past firms have been cross when they have been taken off the map and others have been cross when they were included. The last time the map was produced, we roughly took the year 2000 as a cut off point, but can a firm still be a start-up after more than five years of being?
One of the other question we have to try and determine is are all the firms still going. In a few instances start-ups have vanished and despite our best efforts to track down what became of them, they remain invisible.
The following is a list of start-ups whose fate remains a mystery.
Missing-in action start-ups
K9 Technology
Systolica
Sigtronics
SI Logic
Pogo
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