CHRINON LIMITED
DIRECTOR'S REPORT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 NOVEMBER 2014
The director presents his report and the financial statements for the year ended
30 November 2014
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The director who served during the year was:
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Chrinon Ltd is the publisher of OpenCorporates, the largest open database of companies in the world, with tens of millions of companies in over 100 jurisdictions. We make this information freely available to all, for the benefit of society, and with an innovative dual-use business model, which turns the traditional proprietary business model on its head.
Thus, rather than a big black-box of data, where the provenance of the data is opaque to users, and users get to see a small slice of the data for a fee, all of the data OpenCorporates is visible to users without charge, including the provenance (where it came from and when it was retrieved). We even make the underlying data freely available to users, provided they are making the product of the data freely available under the same Share-Alike Attribution terms. For those who are unable or unwilling to do that we provide the data without the share-alike terms on a paid-for basis.
This not only means we can can be successful, sustainable and scale to include more and more data, it allows us to do this while making the information available to the public, to journalists, to NGOs, to academics, and indeed the general public.
It also also means that the data is exposed to as many people as possible, thus improving the quality (using the “Many Eyes” principle). Finally, we consider this an important part of our public-interest mission, to make company information as widely and openly available as possible. For more information on this, and our other work, please read our 2014 Impact Report, available at http://blog.opencorporates.com/category/impact/
We made significant progress this year with this business model, and now count such well-known organisations such as LinkedIn and the World Bank among our clients, as well as many specialist business information companies and Anti-Money Laundering companies too.
As with many web development companies, most of our work is in research and development that is yet to be widely released, and as well as internally funded R&D, we are grateful to the Alfred P Sloan Foundation for two grants that have allowed us to do innovative research that will directly benefit our public-benefit mission.
The first (which was carried out in the previous financial year), was to develop a methodology and functionality to map corporate structures, and this work produced the innovative visualisations of the structures of the large US banks, as well as helping inform regulators and Civil Society organisations working in this area.
 
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CHRINON LIMITED
DIRECTOR'S REPORT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 NOVEMBER 2014
The second, which has been the focus of the development team for this year is a way of working with the open data community to find, collect, normalise and ingest arbitrary official public data about companies, particularly regulatory filings. We call this the Data Pipeline, and although it is still a work in progress it is showing great promise, with already millions of records imported, in part through the series of our FlashHacks events, which debuted at the Open Knowledge Festival 2014 in Berlin.
We still have a long way to go with OpenCorporates and the cause of open company data, but are confident we are making good progress, and expect to agree a number of significant deals in the next financial year, as more and more organisations and companies see the value of our data.
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CHRINON LIMITED
REGISTERED NUMBER: 07444723
ABBREVIATED BALANCE SHEET
AS AT
30 NOVEMBER 2014
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CREDITORS:
amounts falling due within one year
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The director considers that the company is entitled to exemption from the requirement to have an audit under the provisions of section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 ("the Act")
and members have not required the company to obtain an audit for the year in question in accordance with section 476 of the Act.
The director acknowledges his responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 with respect to accounting records and for preparing financial statements which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company as at 30 November 2014 and of its profit for the year in accordance with the requirements of sections 394 and 395 of the Act and which otherwise comply with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 relating to financial statements, so far as applicable to the company.
The abbreviated accounts, which have been prepared in accordance with the special provisions relating to companies subject to the small companies regime within Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006, were approved and authorised for issue by the board and were signed on its behalf by
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Christopher Taggart
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CHRINON LIMITED
NOTES TO THE ABBREVIATED ACCOUNTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 NOVEMBER 2014
1.
ACCOUNTING POLICIES
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Basis of preparation of financial statements
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The full financial statements, from which these abbreviated accounts have been extracted, have been prepared under the historical cost convention and in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard for Smaller Entities (effective April 2008)
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Turnover comprises revenue recognised by the company in respect of goods and services supplied during the year, exclusive of trade discounts.
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Tangible fixed assets and depreciation
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Tangible fixed assets are stated at cost less depreciation. Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write off the cost of fixed assets, less their estimated residual value, over their expected useful lives on the following bases:
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Computer server equipment
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Monetary assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies are translated into sterling at rates of exchange ruling at the balance sheet date.
Transactions in foreign currencies are translated into sterling at the rate ruling on the date of the transaction.
Exchange gains and losses are recognised in the Profit and loss account.
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Grants relating to revenue based projects are treated as deferred income and released to the profit and loss account as the related expenditure is incurred.
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CHRINON LIMITED
NOTES TO THE ABBREVIATED ACCOUNTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 NOVEMBER 2014
2.
TANGIBLE FIXED ASSETS
3.
SHARE CAPITAL
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Allotted, called up and fully paid
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400
Ordinary
shares of £
1
each
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4.
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS
Included in other creditors is an amount of £14,000 (2013: £4,000) owed to the director, Christopher Taggart. This loan is unsecured, interest free and repayable on demand.
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