Eastman Kodak Co. plans to acquire Design2Launch Inc.

Eastman Kodak Co. plans to acquire Design2Launch Inc., a homegrown Stamford software company, for an undisclosed price and keep the business in the city.

Founded in 1999 by the brother and sister team of Ron and Alison Malloy, privately owned Design2Launch provides software for marketing, advertising and creative workers in the pharmaceutical, food, automotive and consumer packaging industries.

Rochester, N.Y.-based Eastman Kodak said the deal will close in about a month. The sale requires approval of Design2Launch’s minority shareholders.

Design2Launch will be known as Kodak’s Corporate Solutions Group, said Alison Malloy, president and chief executive officer of Design2Launch.

The Corporate Solutions Group will merge into Vancouver, British Columbia-based Enterprise Solutions Strategic Products Group, said Alison Malloy, 34, who will become general manager of Corporate Solutions Group

“Design2Launch users can expect to receive the same high level of service and support we have always provided,” said Roger Lines, director of strategy and business development for the enterprise solutions group, said Design2Launch will become a Kodak product name.

“We are looking at keeping the name as part of the product portfolio,” Lines said. “Design2Launch is a brand that has built up some equity.”

Similar products among the two companies are one reason for the planned merger, he said.

“We purchased them for their experience in selling software for the enterprise markets,” Lines said.

The Malloys said Design2Launch and its 30 headquarters employees will remain at 1 Dock St. in Stamford’s South End.

“We anticipate we will double in size in Stamford over the next 12 months,” said Ron Malloy, 36, chief strategy officer of Design2Launch. He will become vice president of sales and business strategy for Corporate Solutions Group.

Ron Malloy said Kodak’s sales force in 120 countries will “expand our global reach.”

The Malloys are similar to a lot of entrepreneurs in Connecticut who made great efforts to start a company, then get a larger partner to guide them through the latter stages of growth, said Priscilla Cale, director of the University of Connecticut School of Business’ Family Business Program.

“They have a chance to grow their business globally and add value where their expertise lies and be able to see the return on investment,” Cale said.

“The Malloys are entrepreneurial types who kept believing in their vision and the idea that someday their business would have value,” said Jack Condlin, their Stamford neighbor and president of the Stamford Chamber of Commerce.

The Design2Launch purchase would complement Eastman Kodak’s existing presence in lower Fairfield County. Norwalk-based Kodak Polychrome Graphics, a unit of Kodak's Rochester-based Graphic Communications Group, makes pre-press products for the printing industry.

Source: Stamford Advocate