A software company led by a design specialist who decided he needed an easy to use cashflow management tool has raised £1.5 million from investors amid an overseas sales drive.
Edinburgh-based Float plans to open an office in Sydney to capitalise on opportunities in Australia and New Zealand.
The company reckons it will win a good reception in the area for the cloud-based technology it has developed.
Float says its cash flow forecasting and budgeting tool is already used by thousands of small and medium sized enterprises worldwide to help them keep track of how much money they have in real-time.
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The tool can be used to predict the cashflow implications of business decisions.
Chief executive Colin Hewitt said: “Cash flow management is critical to the survival and success of SMEs, and it remains the number one issue keeping business owners awake at night.”
Mr Hewitt founded Float in 2011 after facing challenges managing the cash flow of the digital agency he ran.
He teamed up with a developer friend, Philip Roberts, to launch a product that would make the task easier and which he felt would appeal to people running other firms.
The funding round was led by the Marchmont Ventures private equity firm. This was founded by Hugo Birge and Alan Martin, who ran the Momondo travel search business that was sold to Priceline for $550m in 2017.
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Mr Martin said Marchmont backed firms it felt could maintain rapid growth over the long term.
He added: “We were struck immediately by the global market opportunity for digital accounting services, cash flow in particular, and have been really impressed by the Float product, which their users genuinely love.”
Float can be used with accounting software packages Xero, Quickbooks Online and FreeAgent.
The company launched a partnership programme last year to allow accountancy firms to offer the product as a service.
It will use some of the funds raised to invest in product development.
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