A sales software company is celebrating a £29,768 cash injection after its development of an interactive rich-media platform earned it a valuable government tax incentive, R&D tax specialist Catax can reveal.

POPComms creates high-end interactive sales tools, and virtual exhibitions which can turn complex processes and products into simple, visual stories via touchscreens.

The company has further advanced its software by letting clients access their marketing materials offline and providing new storytelling opportunities that immerse the user in an explorable 3D environment.

Before embarking on its project, POPComms studied competitors’ platforms and found that most are templated, meaning that although they can work offline, a user has to manually select material to be stored locally on a device, which can be a protracted process.

Many systems were also designed to display standard content such as PDFs, PowerPoint, and videos, but they were often showcased by relatively simple websites or web apps. This technology is considered to be flat, static and stale.

The company wanted to develop a platform that connected to the client’s backend system, allowing the customer to pull and push data, content, video, 3D models as well as PDFs and presentations, any content that a sales rep might need when talking to customers. And, they needed to be able to do this online or offline and on any device.

The company undertook a significant amount of research and development work to create a system where customer data and content were tightly integrated within a 3D environment. The integrations between the data and content, user interface and the WebGL 3D scene, had to be built using new coding and architecture from the ground up.

The offline functionality has been one of the biggest advantages to POPComms’ clients, as they are able to continue to capture data, explore in-depth data and documentation, and automate certain tasks even while offline.

Their R&D work has resulted in an improved rich-media platform, offering a significantly enhanced product for their clients, many of whom work in the advanced manufacturing, technology, healthcare and built environment industries.

Damjan Haylor, Managing Director at POPComms, commented:

“This was an important project for us, taking different technologies and bringing them together in a unique way to help our clients with their businesses.

“We’d heard of R&D tax credits but had never considered claiming in the past as it seemed a complicated process and we thought the company would be too small to apply.

“However, we felt this was a very worthwhile project, and as we are not a massive company with millions of pounds in R&D budget, the amount we could claim back was significant.

“We’re very grateful to Catax guiding us through the process and unlocking the money which we will use to invest in more R&D work in the augmented reality space.”

Kully Nijjar, Associate Director of specialist R&D tax consultancy Catax, commented:

“Damjan and the team are a great example of a business striving to improve their products for their clients and using R&D tax credits to support the technological advances they are making.

“They have a great understanding of how numerous sectors can benefit from high-end interactive experiences on touchscreen devices and are striving to make further advances in this area.

“POPComms’ claim is a great reminder that small companies carrying out R&D work are eligible for tax credits, and that these can be very valuable for enabling businesses to make further innovations.”

About Catax

Catax is the UK’s leading expert in specialist tax relief. Since launch, it has recovered more than £390m of tax relief for its clients in the areas of Research & Development, Capital Allowances, the Patent Box and the Remediation of Contaminated Land. For more information, please visit: www.catax.com