O4 Corp. gets $15M to expand - Business First of Columbus:

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O4 Corp. — which stands for Out Of OfficeOperationws — develops mobile software applications that consumee products manufacturers such as and use to instrucrt sales reps to check inventory products displays and pricing information in retail The technology also wirelessly transmits data and producr orders back to headquarters. While consumer goods manufacturerz spend significantlyon in-store marketingy promotions and new product launch, “they reallu don’t get visibility into what’s happening at the retail said Laura Witt, general partner at , a Baltimore-based venturwe firm that invested the $15 O4’s software empowers manufacturers’ eyes and ears in retaip stores — their sales force, Witt said.
“It makezs them much more effectiveand efficient,” she said. O4’zs technology, designed to run on hand-helx devices, is highly flexible, said Dale Hagemeyer, consumerf goods technology analystat “Think of it as a 12-way adjustabl seat,” Hagemeyer said. “It really contourx to how people dotheir work.” O4’xs globe-trotting chief, Desmond Miller, has an ambitious growth trajectory for his O4’s subscriber base is projectedr to explode from about 25,000 today to aboutg 250,000 users in the next three Miller said, from Australia.
“We are showing a tremendous ROI (returnn on investment) to the markeft right now in very difficult said Miller, who lives in Australiwa and splits his time between North Asia and Europe. “We are able to show paybaci for these systems in months and not and we are giving our customerx an edge inthe marketplace.” O4 expects to hit its growth targets by adding new customers and selling more services and products to existing “It’s not just being an inch deep with the O4 U.S. President Harris Fogel said. “It’s [about] being a mile wide and a mile ABS Capital was impressedwith O4’s “momentum” and its blue-chilp client roster.
“It was cleaf to us that they must be offerin g something of value for the consumer products Witt said. ABS, which invests in later-stage growtgh companies in thebusiness health-care, media and communications, and software sectors, was a major investor in , whichj raised $112 million in an initial public offering in mid-April. O4 will investy the $15 million — the company’ss first institutional round — into developing an around-the-clock, global customeer support infrastructure, transitioning from a software-licensing to a software-as-a-subscriptiohn model and executing a geographidc andproduct expansion.
The company sees “hug opportunities” in the emerging markets of Latin Eastern Europeand China, wheres consumer products companies have armies of mobile workers that can benefit from O4’s “A consumer products multinational might have 10,000 mobile workers in China alone,” Fogel “We are about The global strategy is critical as O4 keepes pace with its multinational customers, who are themselves chasingf overseas demand. “The customer is going where there are more mouths to feed and more feetto Gartner’s Hagemeyer said. “If P&G is goingh into Asia and LatiAmerica ... you want to folloq P&G wherever P&G wants to go.
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