Perth company Meercat, which counts some of Australia's largest businesses among its client base, is planning a global rollout of its RiskView software after being bought by Chicago-based VelocityEHS.
Perth company Meercat, which counts some of Australia's largest businesses among its client base, is planning a global rollout of its RiskView software after being bought by Chicago-based VelocityEHS.
Meercat chief executive Alex Apostolou, who established the business in 2002, is enthused by the opportunities ahead.
“I love doing this, there is so much upside for me professionally,” Mr Apostolou said.
With 10 staff, Meercat’s risk management software is used by about 50 customers, including Wesfarmers, Woodside Petroleum, AGL, Coogee, Sandfire Resources and Snowy Hydro.
International customers include Dyno Nobel and Ixom.
Mr Apostolou said a trip to the US early this year opened his eyes to the opportunities for his business.
“I decided then I wanted to be in the US by 2020,” he said.
By coincidence, Mr Apostolou received a call just two months later from Velocity, which had been told about Meercat by a member of its product advisory board.
Velocity has more than 500 staff and 18,000 customers worldwide, providing a platform to take Meercat’s software global.
It will add RiskView to its suite of cloud-based environment, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability solutions, a field in which Velocity is recognised as a market leader.
Chief executive Glenn Trout, who was in Perth this week, said Velocity saw a lot of potential to expand Meercat’s business.
“They have a very high-quality product offering and very unique domain expertise,” he said.
“We will definitely grow our presence here.”
Mr Trout said that would include retaining Meercat’s existing team, as Velocity was not just buying a customer base, it was also acquiring the domain experts.
“The software without the people behind it loses a lot of its value,” he said.
Mr Trout said the acquisition brought together two companies focused on delivering simple and comprehensive risk management solutions that enable better, real-time data tracking and reporting.
Meercat’s RiskView software is designed to simplify the flow of data from hazard identification and hazard assessment studies into a sophisticated ‘bowtie’ risk analysis - a widely-used risk evaluation method to analyse and demonstrate causal relationships in high-risk scenarios.
RiskView then schedules critical control verifications to create a ‘living’ risk register.
Meercat was advised by South Perth-based firm Octavian Group.
Velocity is owned by London-based private equity group CVC Growth Partners.
CVC bought Velocity (and a small related business) in 2007 for $US328 million.
