Visor aims for extra funding after Australia deal

17th May 2009

Irish software firm Visor has won a major deal with Deloitte Australia and is about to embark upon a second fundraising round. The deal will see the accountancy and consultancy multinational sell on Visor’s accounts IQ package to Australian customers.

The value of the contract was not disclosed, but is believed to be worth several million euro to the Irish company, writes Dick O’Brien .

Visor chief executive Tony Connolly said it the company’s most significant deal to date. Accounts IQ went on the market early last year and the company already has a number of clients in the US, Britain, India and Australia.

Connolly said Deloitte had spent nine months researching the market before opting for accounts IQ. ‘‘We came in very late in the deal, but they had heard about the product and asked us to submit a late tender. Thankfully, we won. They are adopting it for all of Australia – a potentially huge market,” he said.

Accounts IQ is an accounting package for businesses, but unlike traditional products in this segment, it is web based and sold on the ’software as a service’ business model. Connolly said that the business model ‘‘results in significant productivity improvements for the accountant and cost savings for both the accountant and their clients’’.

‘‘It also contributes considerably to the green agenda through increased e-mailing of documents, electronic payments and reduced travel,” he added.

It includes features such as customised dashboards highlighting key financial information, single data entry for tax reporting and financial management purposes, integration with internet banking, multiple entity consolidation for reporting purposes, and integration with a client’s front-end systems. All IT infrastructure supporting the software is outsourced, including data backup and security.

Visor was established by Connolly, a former partner in Farrell Grant Sparks, in 2004. The company spent three years developing its product before launching the product last year.

Originally self financed, the company then raised €1 million in funding, with its main backing coming from venture capital firm Enterprise Equity and the AIB Seed Capital Fund.

Connolly said Visor was now about to embark upon a second fund-raising round, which it hoped to have concluded during the summer.