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The newsletter of the Innovation and SMEs Programme
January 2001
IST 2000
Growth Market
One entrepreneur plans to rent out management software over the internet - an idea that may create the next wave of 'dot.coms'.
Lieven Callewaert, MD of Hortica Partners International.
e are creating affordable enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for SMEs in the horticultural sector. We will run application specific programmes (ASPs) on a central computer server. Customers connect to it via the internet, and choose which modules they want to rent," explains Lieven Callewaert. It all started when Callewaert was stuck in traffic on the Paris Périphérique. The driver of another car saw his number plate and asked for a lift to Brussels. He was an MEP, and their conversation led to a successful Esprit application. The Hopliccs project was completed in 1999, and has been followed by a Joint European Venture (JEV) project. Callewaert formed Hortica Partners International along with OM Partners International, which owns the supply chain software, La Graine Informatique, which provides the administrative shell, and ASP One Europe which operates the portal. It has attracted 100,000 of seed capital and is currently testing the software on the ASP portal. "Flowers are a growing and e-aware market - Europe has 500,000 horticultural producers and 10,000 of them turn over between e1 million and 25 million per year," Callewaert says. "We expect to be in profit after three years and to have annual sales of 12 million within five years. But to do that we need 2.5 million in working capital. That is why we attended the Forum." Hortica is now in negotiations with investors from France, Belgium and Denmark. Callewaert is confident, but Nice taught him an important lesson - venture capitalists like big projects. "2.5 million is not enough to interest most investors. We have combined our various agro-ERP projects, and are now trying to raise 4-5 million."
IST 2000 
e are creating affordable enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for SMEs in the horticultural sector. We will run application specific programmes (ASPs) on a central computer server. Customers connect to it via the internet, and choose which modules they want to rent," explains Lieven Callewaert. It all started when Callewaert was stuck in traffic on the Paris Périphérique. The driver of another car saw his number plate and asked for a lift to Brussels. He was an MEP, and their conversation led to a successful Esprit application. The Hopliccs project was completed in 1999, and has been followed by a Joint European Venture (JEV) project. Callewaert formed Hortica Partners International along with OM Partners International, which owns the supply chain software, La Graine Informatique, which provides the administrative shell, and ASP One Europe which operates the portal. It has attracted 
100,000 of seed capital and is currently testing the software on the ASP portal. "Flowers are a growing and e-aware market - Europe has 500,000 horticultural producers and 10,000 of them turn over between e1 million and 
