WhosOnLocation plans capital raise as US plans accelerate

Wellington-based cloud services firm WhosOnLocation is in discussions with several venture capitalists and private equity funds on a "multi-million dollar" capital raising round to be concluded by December this year, following its conclusion of a contract with a US 'people presence manager', Brady Corp.

The deal with New York Stock Exchange-listed Brady was inked last week after the 101-year-old Milwaukee-based company conducted an extensive search for a cloud-based system to manage worksite visitor registration, where it already has "millions of customers in electronics, telecommunications, manufacturing, electrical, construction and education, medical aerospace and a variety of other industries," according to a statement from the company.

WhosOnLocation is the brainchild of former Meridian Energy executive Darren Whitaker-Barnett, who founded the company in 2008. While low profile, the company has attracted a wide range of New Zealand private sector corporate and government agency clients, as well as becoming a supplier to multi-national giant Unilever, among other offshore wins that have placed the company in 14 countries around the globe.

Key to its success has been "incredible customer retention, basically zero churn (loss of customers) since day one," said Whitaker-Barnett. "Coupled with the growing demand for solutions that make it easier for organisations to comply with security and safety of people regulations is giving us the confidence to go aggressively after global markets."

While the company is profitable and can fund its ongoing growth, Whitaker-Barnett said "we do have plans for raising capital to accelerate growth" as it closes in on 5,000 sites in North America, with a plan to take that to 50,000 sites within four years and to be serving 100,000 sites and generating "a minimum of $100 million recurring revenues by 2021."

"We closed a small round of funding recently to strengthen our ability to support our North American market strategy. However, the big picture is the multi-billion opportunity that lies beyond 2021 and the challenge to bring our 2021 objectives forward."

(BusinessDesk)

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