(Media Release) AUCKLAND, NZ. Online billing portal specialist Datagate Telecom Billing has closed a successful rights issue, raising $683,710 of new capital in a move that will enable rapid expansion to capitalise on early success in the North American market.
Datagate offered the rights issue to existing shareholders during September and October this year, over-achieving its target of $500,000 by $183,710. The new capital will enable Datagate to capitalise quickly on a successful first foray into the North American market in November. Datagate won the ‘Best Newcomer’ award at the ConnectWise IT Nation event this month in Orlando, with a cloud service to enable direct telecom and utility billing for ConnectWise users.
Hosted annually by ConnectWise, IT Nation is a major event for North American Managed Service Providers (MSPs). The Best Newcomer award recognises the organisation generating the most attention as a first-time sponsor. The ‘buzz’ around Datagate has validated that there is significant demand for Datagate in North America, says CEO Mark Loveys.
“The concept of ‘taking ownership and control’ of telecom service relationships with customers struck a chord with the ConnectWise MSP community,” he says.
“Our pitch in North America was for MSPs to take ownership and control of their telecommunications business, control the pricing, choose the vendors, bill under their own brand, unify their billing. That really resonated with them. Datagate came away from the conference with over a hundred good leads. We are now following up with all our new American contacts and working to ensure that many of these new leads are converted to sales in the New Year. This fresh capital will help us meet the spike in demand. New Zealand ConnectWise users were obviously watching closely, because our New Zealand MSP enquiries have also spiked.”
MSPs use Datagate to resell the services of any upstream telecom or utility partners they choose, combining and bundling their service offerings with their own unique pricing plans and branding. Datagate’s online billing portal plugs into the usage data feeds of telecommunication providers and manages the data aggregation, rating, billing and analysis of service usage.
Formerly a wholly-owned division of NZAX-listed Enprise Group (ENS), in 2015 Datagate was established as a joint venture between Enprise Group and new investors, including the Ice Angels, VIF, Flying Kiwi Angels and Datagate management. First round seed funding of $1.46 million was raised in February 2016 and a separate board established. BankLink founder Malcolm McDonald joined the board as a director and Enprise CEO and co-founder Mark Loveys was appointed CEO. Second round seed funding of $1.04 million was raised in December 2016. Third round seed funding of $683k was raised in November 2017.
About Datagate Innovation
Datagate’s telecom billing solution is designed for MSPs to rate & bill telecom services, including unified communications (UCaaS), VoIP, tolls, cellular, data plans, and other use-base and subscription services.
Datagate eliminates the need to manage standalone billing systems with integrations into popular software like:
- ConnectWise Manage, Datto Autotask PSA, Kaseya BMS, Halo PSA
- QuickBooks Online & QuickBooks Desktop, Xero & ConnectBooster
Instead, Datagate enables MSPs to integrate telecom billing into the rest of their ecosystem, unlocking a new revenue stream while encouraging business growth and scale.
Datagate also integrates with the top US telecom tax engines: Avalara, CCH SureTax and Compliance Solutions (CSI), which makes calculating telecom taxes and compliance easy no matter where you offer your services.
Built on Microsoft Azure, Datagate is gaining rapid market momentum based on cost, ease of implementation and the ability to handle very complex variable billing and management of virtually any service based on usage. Datagate won ‘Best Newcomer’ award at ConnectWise’s IT Nation 2017.
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Released by Sayle Noble & Associates on behalf of Datagate Innovation. For more information please contact Datagate CEO Mark Loveys: tel 027 597 1889, email [email protected]; or Caroline Sayle: email [email protected]
