Prior to founding Sthaler, Nicholas Dryden developed a number of successful ventures in multimedia and technology. Nick started his career as a computer network, telecoms and communications consultant with Optiva Ltd. in 1989, supporting organisations such as Reuters in the development of their media distribution using intranets and the internet. Subsequently, Nick combined his media and technology work with his interest in music, moved into artist management and became a founding Director of Channelfly Plc (renamed Mama Group now owned by HMV) in 1999. This involved working with music venues and publishing and promotion across a range of media platforms. Nick successfully exited the business with the sale to HMV in 2009. Nick founded Xtaster in 2003, which built complex social platforms to engage young people and to activate marketing and research campaigns. Xtaster supported an active 1million member network across the UK and Germany. Xtaster exploited user data from its membership enabling the business to predict and model future member behavior using multivariate regression. Xtaster was thus in the Vanguard of the “Big Data” phenomenon’. Xtaster worked in partnership with some of the world’s largest entertainment companies such as Universal, Warner Brothers, Sony, BMG, EMI, Activision, Microsoft & Nokia. Nick started working with MasterCard in 2010/11 to introduce a cashless payment system at music festivals and from his work with MasterCard, Nick saw the potential of a superior biometric identification system. From this realization came the Sthaler finger vein based payment system