US rival snaps up Auckland’s My Tours
NZ company’s founder gains OnCell role
Auckland-based software company Authentic, which trades as My Tours, has been sold to New Yorkbased rival OnCell.
The value of the deal was not disclosed, but the Herald understands it runs into the single-digit millions.
My Tours says its software can “turn your city walks, museum tours and audio guides into mobile applications”.
Founder Glen Barnes says it has 250 customers around the world, many of them museums. Customers pay setup costs plus up to $6000 a year in annual fees.
OnCell says its own technology, similar to My Tours’, has been used for about 6000 projects, about half in the US.
Barnes will become OnCell’s chief product officer as part of the deal.
“I’m not required to stay on but am really passionate about the culture and heritage sector,” he said.
On social media, Barnes gave a nod to My Tours’ first customer, wellingtonnz.com, which is still with the company 10 years on.
And after a round of thank you's, he added — perhaps in a bid to pre-empt criticism: “And yes, another NZ tech company gone offshore.”
He later elaborated to the Herald, “You can sit on the sideline and make all the
comments you like, but until you get in that situation personally, you can’t say what you’d do. Everyone’s got to make their own decision.”
In Authentic’s case, joining forces with OnCell means Barnes’ company will have a bigger team behind it, and the ability to take advantage of more global opportunities.
But he’s also negotiated things so he and his staff will remain in Auckland, and he’ll continue to contract to local software developers.
Barnes was bracing for a burn from commentator and investor Ben Kepes, but in the final event the Cantabrian saw the deal as a plus.
“It’s great to see another Herald.
“Barnes was an early character in the New Zealand tech ecosystem and has spent years beavering away at My Tours. The fact is that, beyond a certain scale and outside of some notable exceptions, scaling a Kiwi tech business is
incredibly hard. Thus an exit is often the right thing for a founder to aim for.”
Barnes said he’d look to pay it forward and re-invest in the local ecosystem. But don’t bombard him with your pitches yet, he’ll be focused on making his new role work.
My Tours was founded in 2009. Barnes said until the OnCell deal, it had been bootstrapped up all the way.
(Taxpayer-funded multimillion Callaghan Growth Grants often cloud the picture when an NZ tech sells offshore. In My Tours’ case, it has only had a Callaghan Project Grant — a smaller support programme that runs to support in the tens of thousands.)