Rock star Bono has invested €260,000 in the latest funding round at Bizimply, the software company where his brother Norman Hewson is one of the principals.
Bizimply develops software for the hospitality and retail sectors that is used by over 10,000 customers in 11 countries. Other investors in funding round were state-funded Causeway Capital (€770,000), Malta-based Jacaranda Special Situations (€110,000) and California VC 500 Startups (€230,000).
The allotment by Bizimply Holdings Ltd also involved issuing shares to shareholders in the startup company, Bizimply Ltd. The n0tional value placed on Bizimply Ltd shares was €3.5 million.
Years of watching frustrated restaurant managers using Excel to run their business provided the catalyst for Gerard Forde, Norman Hewson and Mikey Cannon to set up Bizimply in 2012.
Hewson is a veteran restaurant operator in Dublin and worked with Forde in the Nude chain. Forde was also business performance manager at Aramark from 2006 to 2011.
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According to Forde: “We set up Bizimply because we believe that restaurant and retail managers should always be out on the shop floor driving sales. Unfortunately, they are all too often stuck in the back office under a mountain of paperwork, while head office and the business owners struggle to track what’s happening in their business without getting bombarded with emails and text messages.”
Bizimply has picked up a clutch of awards in recent years, including the ESB Spark Of Genius award and the PITCH Alpha winner title at the 2015 Web Summit.
In the year to January 2014, Bizimply booked a loss of €105,000, bringing accumulated losses to €182,000. Year-end debtors amounted to €5,000 and the company had a net deficit of €100,000.
Bizimply’s founders said that their company recorded strong growth of late, with customers including the Insomnia café chain and Compu b.
Taxpayers through Enterprise Ireland have invested €300,000 in Bizimply Ltd. Bono initially invested €50,000 in his brother’s company in 2014. Bizimply is advised by law firm Maples and Calder.
Photo L-R: Matt Scaife, Causeway Capital; Bizimply co-founders Gerard Forde and Mikey Cannon; David Raethorne Causeway Capital. (Pic: Maxwell Photography)
