Published on the 12/05/2016 | Written by Beverley Head
The $3 million funding round that trans-Tasman business Unleashed Software just raised should take it to break-even point – but “something significant” is just 12-15 months away…
Gareth Berry, the company’s CEO and employee number one at the inventory management cloud software company, said that to keep growing at a triple digit rate the company would do “something significant in the next 12 months” – be that another funding round, a trade sale or a listing.
The latest round of funding features new and existing backers, including Craig Winkler (founder of accounting software company MYOB), Milford Asset Management and Sir David Levene’s investment company, Lewis Holdings. Unleashed Software has raised more than $18m in capital to date.
Berry said that the company had “Done quite a bit of market sounding” about the value of the company. The market however seems to still find Unleashed a difficult beast to pin a firm value to; Berry said estimates currently ranged between $20million and $40 million.
A stalwart of the Deloitte Fast 500, the seven year old company which boasts 57 staff, is headquartered in New Zealand, though most customers are currently Australian. It sells inventory management software-as-a-service focussed on small manufacturers and wholesalers.
The 2015 Deloitte Fast 500 for Asia Pacific ranks Unleashed as the region’s 171st fastest growing company with a 245 per cent revenue growth during the year.
While Berry said customers; “Are not the glamour retail brands that see our name in lights,” it does claim a couple of thousand customers internationally. (Selling SaaS meant that Unleashed Software sold globally from day one, and now has users in 80 countries).
Most of the company’s production services are hosted in Australia, though it also has cloud services arrangements with Amazon and Azure. Content is distributed to clients via Akamai.
It’s an approach that Berry said means customers are getting data, “As fast as possible without a server being located just down the road from them.”
With the $3 million injection of funds the company plans to expand its international depth and is about to open offices in the UK. Working with partners it also wants to expand sales into other markets including South Africa, India and Hong Kong.
“Previous raisings were all about building out the platform, now the platform is built we are adding value,” said Berry.
“We are starting to do market research to see what is needed next. The funds we have raised are enough to let us break even,” he told iStart.
