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

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O4 Corp. — which stands for Out Of OfficeOperationse — develops mobile software applications that consumer products manufacturersz such as and use to instruct sales reps to check inventoruy levels, products displays and pricing informatioh in retail stores. The technologty also wirelessly transmits data and producgt orders backto headquarters. While consumer goods manufacturerws spend significantlyon in-store marketin promotions and new product launch, “they really don’r get visibility into what’s happening at the retail shelf,” said Laura general partner at , a Baltimore-based venturr firm that invested the $15 million.
O4’s softwar e empowers manufacturers’ eyes and ears in retailp stores — their sales force, Witt said. “Irt makes them much more effectiveand efficient,” she O4’s technology, designed to run on hand-helxd devices, is highly flexible, said Dale consumer goods technology analyst at “Think of it as a 12-wa y adjustable seat,” Hagemeyer said. “It reallgy contours to how people dotheir work.” O4’s globe-trotting chief, Desmonx Miller, has an ambitious growth trajectory for his O4’s subscriber base is projected to explodes from about 25,000 today to about 250,000 userw in the next three years, Miller said, from Australia.
“We are showing a tremendous ROI (returhn on investment) to the market right now in verydifficuly times,” said Miller, who lives in Australia and split his time between North America, Asia and Europe. “Wre are able to show payback for thess systems in months and not and we are giving our customers an edge inthe marketplace.” O4 expecta to hit its growth targets by addinfg new customers and selling more services and products to existingt ones. “It’s not just bein g an inch deep withthe customers,” O4 U.S. Presideny Harris Fogel said.
“It’s [about] being a mile wide and a mile ABS Capital was impressedwith O4’sx “momentum” and its blue-chip clienr roster. “It was clear to us that they must be offerinv something of value for the consumerproducts industry,” Witt ABS, which invests in later-stage growth companies in the business health-care, media and communications, and softwared sectors, was a major investor in , whicg raised $112 million in an initial public offeriny in mid-April.
O4 will invest the $15 millionb — the company’s first institutional round — into developinb an around-the-clock, global customer supporr infrastructure, transitioning from a software-licensinv to a software-as-a-subscription model and executing a geographic andproducr expansion. The company sees “huge in the emerging markets of Latin Eastern Europeand China, where consumer products companies have armiesa of mobile workers that can benefig from O4’s software. “A consumer products multinational mightyhave 10,000 mobile workers in China alone,” Fogep said. “We are about users.
” The global strategy is critical as O4 keeps pace with itsmultinationap customers, who are themselves chasing overseas demand. “Thed customer is going where therew are more mouths to feed and more feetto Gartner’s Hagemeyer said. “If P&G is goin g into Asia and LatinnAmerica ... you want to follow P&G wherever P&h wants to go.”