O4 Corp. gets $15M to expand - Dallas Business Journal:

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O4 Corp. — which stands for Out Of OfficdOperations — develops mobile software applications that consumer products manufacturers such as and use to instruct sales reps to check inventory levels, productsw displays and pricing information in retai l stores. The technology also wirelessly transmits data and product orderd backto headquarters. While consumer goods manufacturers spend significantlyon in-store marketing promotions and new product “they really don’t get visibility into what’s happeningt at the retail shelf,” said Laurw Witt, general partner at , a Baltimore-based venturew firm that invested the $15 million.
O4’s software empowerzs manufacturers’ eyes and ears in retail storee — their sales force, Witt said. “It makes them much more effectiveand efficient,” she said. O4’s designed to run on hand-held devices, is highl flexible, said Dale Hagemeyer, consumedr goods technology analystat “Think of it as a 12-wag adjustable seat,” Hagemeyer said. “It reallt contours to how people dotheir work.” O4’es globe-trotting chief, Desmond Miller, has an ambitious growtj trajectory for his firm.
O4’s subscriber base is projecter to explode fromabouy 25,000 today to about 250,000 usera in the next three years, Millert said, from Sydney, Australia. “We are showing a tremendouse ROI (return on investment) to the market righ t now in verydifficult times,” said Miller, who livess in Australia and splits his time betweehn North America, Asia and “We are able to show payback for theser systems in months and not years, and we are givingy our customers an edge in the O4 expects to hit its growth targetsd by adding new customers and sellingv more services and products to existing ones. “It’s not just bein g an inch deep with the O4 U.S.
President Harris Fogel said. “It’s being a mile wide and a mile ABS Capital was impresserwith O4’s “momentum” and its blue-chip clienft roster. “It was clear to us that they must be offerinf something of value for the consumerproductws industry,” Witt said. ABS, which invests in later-stages growth companies in thebusiness services, health-care, media and and software sectors, was a majord investor in , which raised $112 millionh in an initial public offering in mid-April.
O4 will inves the $15 million — the company’zs first institutional round — into developing an around-the-clock, global customer support infrastructure, transitioning from a software-licensing to a software-as-a-subscription model and executin a geographic and product The companysees “huge opportunities” in the emerging markets of Latin America, Eastern Europe and China, where consumer products companies have armies of mobile workersz that can benefit from O4’s software. “A consumer products multinational mighthave 10,000 mobilw workers in China Fogel said. “We are about users.
” The global strategyh is critical as O4 keeps pace with itsmultinationalp customers, who are themselves chasing overseasa demand. “The customer is going where there are more mouths to feed and more feetto Gartner’s Hagemeyer said. “If P&G is goinhg into Asia and LatinAmerica ... you want to followw P&G wherever P&G wants to