Virsae secures new equity
Auckland 9 March 2017 – Cloud services provider Virsae has secured a second round of equity funding, with newly-established New Zealand
private equity firm Darby Capital Partners (DCP) taking a multi-million dollar stake in the fast growing Auckland-based
business.
Launched in 2013, Virsae has notched up seven-figure revenues from sales of the company’s flagship product, Virsae
Service Management (VSM), which monitors unified communications systems (phones and messaging systems that run on IT
networks).
DCP’s investment comes a year after Virsae raised $3 million of equity funding from 10 investors, including
Auckland-based Ice Angels funding entity Ice Funds Limited.
The new investment will further boost sales distribution in the US and UK, collectively accounting for 90% of the firm’s
sales, and extend VSM’s capabilities to additional UC vendor platforms.
The firm’s revenue grew by 93% over the 2015/2016 financial year – and the company is on track to almost double sales
again within the current the 2016/2017 financial year.
DCP director Zak Darby said his company’s stake in Virsae was the first step in a plan to build a portfolio of
investments in high-growth technology companies in the Asia Pacific.
“Virsae has come a long way in a short time in a multi-billion dollar market. The company is stacked with seasoned
entrepreneurs. And like Xero, Virsae is built in the cloud, which is rare in the UC category. As competitors retro-fit
traditional applications for cloud delivery, Virsae has gapped the field. It’s a great story.”
Mr Darby said his firm’s strategy centred on taking “non-control minority investment” in high-growth technology
companies, providing “transformative capital” and business development.
“We are uniquely positioned to help Australasian businesses scale internationally by leveraging our international
investor base and network, which includes Ric Kayne,” he said.
Mr Kayne is the co-chairman and founder of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors L.P, a US$26 billion investment firm based in
Los Angeles.
Virsae CEO Tony Jayne said that while Virsae had proved itself on a global stage, new capital and business connections
through DCP were critical to small tech providers situated at the bottom of the world.
“DCP shone brightest in our selection process, offering capital, sound strategic advice, and international connections
that put us on a much bigger radar,” he said.
Jayne said near term goals included adding resellers and developing capabilities that drilled deeper into software from
the vendors fast shaping up as leaders in unified communications – names like Microsoft, Cisco, and Mitel.
Today the company has more than 30 staff, including a team of New Zealand-based developers, and each month processes
more than seven billion transactions created by hundreds of thousands of end-users.
“We have few dominant competitors, so there’s a massive opportunity for the taking – just the kind of story to turn
heads in the technology investment community,” said Jayne.
Virsae is ranked Number 308 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ Asia Pacific 2016, and scooped industry awards,
including Emerging Exporter of the Year award at the 2016 Air New Zealand Cargo ExportNZ Awards; and ISV of the year at
the 2016 Reseller News ICT Industry Awards.
Virsae customers are primarily at the big end of town – large companies with big contact centre operations and complex
internal communications networks delivering essential communications.
The company uses an indirect sales model, focusing on technology service providers to resell VSM as a component of a
larger service maintenance programme.
On this front, 24 business partners have established Virsae in key markets around the world, including US giant Arrow
SI, Californian-based Altura, Maintel and 4Net from the UK, and global systems integrator AGC Networks.
-- ENDS –
About Virsae – www.virsae.com
Businesses around the world use Virsae's cloud services to monitor and manage their communications technology. In the
same way air traffic control keeps airports running smoothly, Virsae keeps business communications at peak performance,
so every channel remains open, customers always get answers, and workers keep communicating.
About Darby Capital Partners - www.darbycp.com
Darby Capital Partners is a private equity firm focused on driving growth for Asia-Pacific lower middle market
technology companies through business development and capital investment. They seek to partner with driven entrepreneurs
as a non-control minority investor and provide transformative capital to these high growth companies. Darby Capital
Partners has an international reach through its USA investors and network that includes Ric Kayne, the founder and
co-chairman and of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors L.P. – a US$26 billion investment firm based in Los Angeles.