Sine wave from Allan Moss
Edited by Sarah Thompson
Macquarie Group co-founder and former long-time chief executive Allan Moss has emerged as a backer of Adelaide-based technology and software company Sine as it prepares to embark on a round of fundraising and step up a gear in the United States.
Moss is a veteran of corporate Australia having run Macquarie for 15 years until 2008, but certainly knows what's what when it comes to investing in the digital age, having been involved in a range of tech-related businesses including United Networks.
It is understood Moss first invested in Sine almost 18 months ago. It has been a busy time since for Sine which in September last year inked a deal where industry behemoth Hewlett Packard agreed to use its software to manage access for a range of mobile services. In a nutshell, Sine manages the technology behind the "people flow" into offices and other sites so those folks can get down to work fast in the digital age.
Sine also boasts a string of other blue-chip clients including Vodafone, Goodman Group, Lendlease, JLL and Anthony Pratt's Visy.
Sine is headed by Antony Ceravolo and the institutional raising is designed to add financial grunt to expansion plans centred on the US market. The success of much bigger Australian firms like Atlassian has helped pave the way for the smaller fry in the software and fintech sector to gain a robust reception stateside. Ceravolo declined to comment on a potential capital raising but said Sine was keen to grow its offering in the US in terms of "boots on the ground offices and product and sales development."
"I think a lot of Australian companies are being very well-received in the US," he told Street Talk.
Sine straddles the property tech theme with its business making it easier for companies to set up a digital workplace of the future. Under the HP deal late last year, HP's Aruba division is using Sine's software to manage access to mobile services. In practical terms it means that visitors to a particular premises or office - be it a hotel, school, office, construction site, university campus or a special event - become easily authenticated onto that specific location's Wi-Fi network. It is smooth and efficient and obviates the need for fiddling around with complex technical requirements.
Ceravolo is preparing to present at a large conference in New York next week called Disrupt CRE. Timing is everything in the corporate world. Sine was the recipient of $350,000 of Federal Government funds early in 2016 via a commercialisation program.
From Street Talk, Australian Financial Review 21 March 2017
The original article can be found here.
