Paul Allen Invests In Online Voting Firm

Top 10 Government IT Innovators Of 2013

Online voting got a boost this week when Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen invested $40 million in e-voting company Scytl.

Barcelona-based Scytl specializes in secure electronic voting, election management, and election modernization. Since its founding in 2001, Scytl has managed more than 100,000 electoral events electronically all over the world, including the US, according to company officials. The firm's suite of products includes everything from training poll workers to holding elections online.

Scytl is backed by various investors, including Balderton Capital, Nauta Capital, and Spinnaker Invest. The new funding comes from Vulcan Capital's Silicon Valley-based growth equity fund, which focuses on making investments -- ranging from $10 million to $100 million -- in Internet and technology companies. Vulcan Capital is the multibillion-dollar investment arm of Vulcan Inc., founded by Allen.

[Former federal CIO offers five innovative ideas to help streamline government IT. Read Wanted: Yelp For Government IT Contractors.]

Abhishek Agrawal, who heads all growth equity investments for Vulcan Capital and will now join Scytl's board of directors, said Scytl is at the forefront of enabling online voting. "Scytl is playing a pivotal role in helping governments worldwide to further embrace technology-driven modernization in their election processes, an area which will continue to undergo massive transformation in the coming years," Agrawal said in a news release.

According to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), 14 countries have used or are using Internet voting, mostly to target specific categories of voters, such as expatriates, military personnel posted overseas, and people with disabilities. Estonia and the United Arab Emirates use online voting nationwide, and five other counties allow it in some parts. The US is among the countries that have piloted online voting and decided not to continue its use, said IFES, which is based in Washington, D.C.

Concerns over security have halted widespread adoption of online voting. Scytl said it's offering a way for governments to modernize their voting systems without compromising security. Scytl products incorporate cryptographic protocols and end-to-end encryption for privacy and confidentiality during the voting process.

In 2010, Scytl was selected by the US Defense Department to provide online ballot delivery and onscreen marking systems as part of the Federal Voting Assistance Program. The program was created to support overseas military and civilian voters for the 2010 election cycle and beyond. Nine states agreed to participate in the program: New York, Washington, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Indiana.

Scytl said it will use proceeds from the latest round of financing to fund its research-and-development efforts and strategic acquisitions. In the past two years Scytl has acquired two US firms specializing in election modernization. SOE Software is the creator of the e-Election Platform, which covers the full election cycle like pre-election, election day, and post-election, with tailored tasks for each cycle. The other firm, Maxim, provides voter registration technology.

Our InformationWeek Elite 100 issue -- our 26th ranking of technology innovators -- shines a spotlight on businesses that are succeeding because of their digital strategies. We take a close at look at the top five companies in this year's ranking and the eight winners of our Business Innovation awards, and offer 20 great ideas that you can use in your company. We also provide a ranked list of our Elite 100 innovators. Read our InformationWeek Elite 100 issue today.