Enba boasts heavyweight backing for Net start-up

NEWS Enba claims to be Europe's largest ever venture capital-backed Internet start-up - with over £10m in the bank. The firm will act as a parent company for what it hopes will be a raft of financial service Web sites. Chief executive, Gerhard Huber, said: "We will be launching in either April or May - we have finished the IT side and are now just waiting for approval from the regulators." Huber said the company has three criteria for its investments - companies have to be consumer-oriented financial businesses, be Internet-based and transaction-based. Enba is backed by Apax Partners, chip giant Intel, Invision AG and Vertex. Huber claimed Enba will be able to make far larger savings than a traditional bank moving onto the Web. "We are a green field development. It is not just a new route to traditional services with all the costs associated with that: we will have far lower costs," he said.