Orchestream founder Charlie Muirhead has stepped aside at his newest tech startup, networking software company Nexagent, for the appointment of new CEO Royce Murphy. Muirhead will remain as president with overall responsibility for marketing, business strategy and the solution roadmap.

Nexagent is currently negotiating a fundraising - thought to be for around £16m. It had been planning to complete the round before the end of 2002, but the financing is believed to still be a few months from completion. Atlas Venture and Benchmark Capital co-led Nexagent's E16.3m first round, which is dependent on meeting certain milestones, in May last year. See Technology Finance archives for more details.

Murphy, who described himself as taking on the role of chief "get it done" officer, said that he had joined Nexagent because the business was "moving from a pre-revenue start up to a real operational business in the next two quarters."

Tellingly Murphy has priceless experience of leading a UK-based software startup into an exit. As CEO of PeopleDoc Ltd he oversaw the firm's sale to Humming Bird. Murphy joins directly from FileNET, a US$ 350m business process management and content management software vendor, where he was senior vice president for the EMEA region. Murphy has also held senior positions at Eastman Software and Hewlett-Packard.

Nexagent has just signed a partnership deal with a systems integrator it plans to use to license its technology. It is also in the process of putting together its first sales deals, the first of which are expected to be announced in the current half-year. Murphy is aiming to build annual revenues to over £100m in the next five years. Profitability is timetabled for 2005.

Murphy said the company is such an enticing proposition, even in the current market, "because it solves an existing problem and brings a fast payback". He added "it was the combination of this great idea and the quality of the team they have built up that attracted me".