Bennie facilitated an initial seed investment of $1.5 million CAD to finance a new start-up company, "Delrina", to develop this idea.
Both would later meet with Bennie, who was then the Chief Executive Officer of Carolian Systems International, a firm that made business software for Hewlett-Packard. A year before the firm was incorporated, Amato and Skapinker had quit their jobs to start work on an electronic forms product which would eventually become PerForm. After the company was acquired by Symantec, various divisions were sold off and several of Delrina's former executives went on to found venture capital firms.Įarly corporate logo for Delrina, circa 1988ĭelrina was founded in Toronto in 1988 by Zimbabwean expatriate Bert Amato, South African expatriates Mark Skapinker and Dennis Bennie and American Lou Ryan.
It attempted to diversify into other areas such with online communications software with its WinComm product and produced a Web browser called Cyberjack. The firm grew steadily over the course of the early 1990s, with revenues from WinFax amounting to 80% of the company's revenues. The case set a precedent in American law whereby satiric commercial software products are not subject to the same First Amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or literature. Delrina also produced a set of popular screensavers, including one that resulted in a well-publicized lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement ( Berkeley Systems Inc. WinFax enabled computers equipped with fax- modems to transmit faxes to standalone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. Delrina's electronic form products included PerForm and FormFlow, but it was best-known for its WinFax software package. Delrina's business strategy was to "establish technical and market leadership in niche markets", which it accomplished with its electronic form and PC-based fax software. Delrina was Bennie's second major entrepreneurial start up after co-founding Mission Electronics, still today a leading international home theatre equipment company. These four founders started the Delrina venture together and amazingly ended the venture still together six years later, making the Company a rare and unique business. The Company was established during 1988 in Toronto, Ontario and was subsequently acquired by the American software firm Symantec in 1995. WinFax, PerForm, FormFlow, Echo Lake, Cyberjack, WinComm, TalkWorks, CommSuite 95ĭelrina was a Canadian software company founded by four individuals, Dennis Bennie as CEO & Chairman, Mark Skapinker as President, Bert Amato as Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer and Lou Ryan as Executive Vice President of World Wide Sales. Lou Ryan Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales Bert Amato Executive Vice President & Chief Technical Officer ,