Sajan creates new firm to sell software

Sajan Inc., a fast-growing translation company in River Falls, Wis., has launched a new company in Ireland to sell its Web-based technology directly to corporate customers.

Sajan's head of marketing, Vern Hanzlik, will head the new operation in Dublin but remain based in the Twin Cities. Hanzlik is the former head of Stellent Inc., the software company in Eden Prairie that was acquired by Oracle Corp. in 2006.

Sajan announced the move Tuesday, less than a week after it was pulled into federal court in Minneapolis in a tangled management-shareholder feud involving MathStar Inc., an inactive semiconductor company in Oregon whose stock still trades over the counter. MathStar and Sajan are expected to merge -- an unlikely romance at the heart of the legal battle that involves Minneapolis investment banker Feltl and Co. Inc. and Wayzata money manager Perkins Capital Management Inc.

Sajan and MathStar both have Minnesota connections and a base of regional investors.

Sajan makes advanced language translation software for companies such as 3M Co. that can be accessed over the Internet -- a cheaper, easier alternative to hiring translation services or installing expensive software, said Sajan CEO Shannon Zimmerman. The privately held company has 85 employees in three locations, including a research and development operation in New Delhi, India, Zimmerman said, and will have estimated sales this year of about $14 million. Sajan has been on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies for two years in a row, he said.

Zimmerman declined to discuss the lawsuit but said the launch of Sajan Software has nothing to do with Sajan's proposed merger with MathStar. Ireland was the logical place for the company's new business because of a cluster of specialized expertise, he said.

Zimmerman called the merger with MathStar "a financing opportunity for our business to help it grow."

Sajan, MathStar, Feltl and Co. and Perkins Capital Management, among others, are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. They are suing John Fife, head of Chicago-based Tiberius Capital II, after Fife allegedly threatened to file a class-action lawsuit against them accusing them of securities fraud in engineering the merger of MathStar and Sajan. The group said in its lawsuit that Fife is just angry that his attempt at a hostile takeover of MathStar failed.

John C. Feltl, CEO of Feltl and Co., wasn't available Tuesday to comment.