New Zealand-founded Telogis, a major global developer of fleet telematics solutions, has recently confirmed a major NZD $112 million boost in institutional capital financing, which will trigger the creation of 150 new developer jobs at their Christchurch R&D centre.
The funding will enable a ramping-up of investment in the rapidly growing multi-billion dollar market around enterprise location-based products and services.
The $112m injection signals a boost for Telogis’ Christchurch R&D centre, earmarked to benefit from the cash injection with staff numbers doubling, to reach 300 over the next year.
The investment encapsulates the increasing confidence in New Zealand as a major tech developer of enterprise mobility solutions.
Telogis has been solely funded from owners’ introduced capital and the switch to an institutional investor base is expected to provide the financial muscle Telogis needs to develop innovation and capitalise on strong market growth, particularly in the highly competitive North American market. A Nasdaq listing is mooted for 2014.
Telogis was established simultaneously in the United States and New Zealand in 2001 but the Christchurch operation is now a wholly-owned US subsidiary. The company employs 400 people worldwide, with offices in Europe and Latin America and R&D centres in the US, Canada, and Christchurch, with channel partners ensuring that Telogis solutions are used in over 100 countries worldwide.
The compoany’s latest innovations incorporate radio frequency ID (RFID) tags, and predictive traffic, weather management and re-routing software.
While the US fleet management market offers plenty of growth opportunity – with as few 10% to 20% vehicles using telematics, and other categories lagging further behind – Telogis’ co-founder and current chief technology officer, Ralph Mason says that transport is a major category, but at the thin end of the GPS wedge, describing Telogis as more than fleet tracking.
“We manage everything mobile within a business, whether it is a mobile work force or vehicles – anything that leaves the doors of a company.”
Mason predicts a time when every vehicle or asset, commercial or private, is tracked.
An interview with Ralph Mason will be in DIESELtalk’s upcoming special industry report on New Zealand’s best-of-breed telematics service providers.
