The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Dundee tech firm Waracle on verge of expansion
Voice recognition technology a key to ‘keeping one foot in the future’
Dundee-based technology firm Waracle is on the verge of announcing a new client-based acquisition in the Edinburgh-based financial services sector which will result in “sizeable growth” of the company.
This has been revealed by the firm’s business development director David Romilly who said he was not yet in a position to go public on details of the deal which resulted from a nationwide tender but he said it was “very exciting”.
As one of the UK’s leading mobile app development and digital consulting companies, Waracle was spun out of Abertay University around eight years ago when David’s brother Michael Romilly and Mike Warton had aspirations to create a gambling and gaming mobile app.
Today, the firm works with many of the largest companies across the UK and Europe on a regular basis and across a range of industries including digital health, government, energy, technology and luxury brands.
In an interview with Courier Business, Mr Romilly said a key to the ongoing success of Waracle, which has offices in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow and has done remote work in Switzerland, London and New York, was to have “one foot in the future”.
He said: “We’ve been going about eight years. We started in mobiles. For the first few years we predominately did one-off projects. In the last couple of years we’ve focused on expanding.
“I think the big difference now is we are being trusted with programmes of work rather than individual pieces of work, and those programmes will cover mobile development, they will cover IOT, they will cover voice recognition.
“So it’s not a question of can we get a quote for an app, it’s like can you be our partner to work alongside us, to deliver two, three years of mobile and emerging technology work.”
One area where the firm hopes to expand is digital health. Digitisation of services could range from the development of wearable devices that constantly monitor health and collect patients’ data allowing health care professionals to pre-empt poor health situations, to devices that simply remind patients about medical appointments and medication.
David, who started off as an economist and is originally from Newport, said he liked the fact the Dundee-based firm was “not traditional central belt”.
He added: “It’s been more difficult for us to access resources, contracts and big companies.
“I think it’s testament to everyone involved that we’ve managed to thrive without having that kind of access.”