NZ software firm SwipedOn sells to British company for $11m

AUCKLAND: Kiwi software firm SwipedOn has been sold to UK company SmartSpace Software for $11 million.

The British company provides workspace management software and has wanted to expand that offering through an acqui sition since July.

Taurangabased SwipedOn’s software helps visitors sign in when visiting an organisation. Its backers included Ice Angels, Enterprise Angels, New Zealand Venture Investment Fund and K1W1.

The New Zealand firm’s annual recurring revenue — a favoured measure among softwareasaservice companies — was $1.6 million in August, up from $846,000 in September 2017.

It reported a loss of $450,000 in the year ended March 31 on revenue of $1 million.

‘‘We decided on SwipedOn as we felt it met our criteria of offering good value, had a scalable technology, a worldwide customer base, a strong team and established SaaS management processes with the potential for significant growth,’’ SmartSpace chief executive Frank Beechinor said.

SmartSpace will pay $8.6 million in cash. SwipedOn chief executive Hadleigh Ford, head of product Ben Scott, CTO Matt Cooney and marketing head Paul Hansen will receive shares in SmartSpace, which has applied to the London Stock Exchange to list on the AIM market for small, growthfocused companies.