William Johnson
Brighton, MI (USA)
Role(s):
VP/SVP/Dept Head
XCEND Group
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Startup
Location:
Brighton
Industry:
Software
Year Founded:
2005
Number Employees:
10-50 people
Description:
While we have been in business for about 4 years, XCEND has recently re-crafted its strategy that previously focused on Enterprise Systems Management, but will now add on to that a Security & Compliance practice which will both feed into our ultimate vision of becoming a product company aimed at being a leader in a new niche, which we have coined “Business Intelligence for IT”.
To give you a bit of background, XCEND Group Inc. is boutique IT Consulting & Asset Management firm. We have been in business for nearly five years, acting primarily as a solution provider or value added reseller for Symantec/Altiris. This has been a very solid business strategy for us, having done revenues of $2.83M in 2006, $4.54M in 2007 and $5.92M in 2008 and been profitable in each of those years. In the past year, XCEND realized there was a glaring customer need that was being unfulfilled in our client base. This need was to create a Real Time Dashboard designed to display KPI’s related directly to information technology. Over the past year, we have funded the development of this product and have recently released Version 1.0 and everyone who has seen the demo of the product has been wowed by it.
What XCEND currently possesses that mitigates risk for investors and is vital for company success:
1. Large customer base well suited for expansion into Security/Compliance & XCEND Software from its VAR operations
2. A fully completed product (version 1.0 of XCEND’s Real Time Dashboards)
3. A business that is generating a positive cash flow in the NOW
4. Management Team with decades of experience in IT, specifically IT Lifecycle Management
While XCEND could probably pull this off without funding, our go to market speed and the ability to reap profits would be greatly accelerated if we had adequate capital for:
1. Expansion of software application development to increase go to market speed of XCEND-branded software.
2. Implementation of a comprehensive XCEND Sales & Marketing Strategy, built around increasing customer awareness of XCEND-branded software and the extended XCEND product line.
3. Working Capital to solidify XCEND’s infrastructure (basically this is to mean that XCEND cannot finance becoming a product company simply from its services operations) including:
a. Training of Consultants and Sales Reps on new products being brought into the XCEND portfolio.
b. Increase of Pre-Sales Support to drive the Closing of Business Leads
c. Ability to fund large-scale deals directly on XCEND paper, such as the $775K eBay deal from 2008
4. With enough Funding, XCEND can also entertain Acquisition deals that would create economies of scale, exploit creative synergies and consolidate competition. There are a few other small consulting firms just like XCEND that are primed for the taking right now.
Based on general investment Criteria, I believe that XCEND would be a great fit for your investment because:
1. We fit into the Information Technology field that is still a hot market
2. The investment we are looking for falls in the range of $500K to $2M, depending on what direction we focus on.
3. In the IT field, there is a clear Exit Strategy as the major players often end up buying the small innovative companies or their technologies. When our software takes off, it would be perfect for acquisition by a larger firm that would love to incorporate our Dashboard technology into one of their Enterprise Management Systems (EMS). And what is so great about our product is that it is Vendor Agnostic so we can access and display data from all of the different point solutions that a customer might have. The application of this is quite universal.
4. XCEND is beyond being a startup company, having already generated sales and built the company infrastructure. What we need now is the funding to grow and grow quickly so as not to miss out on the market.
5. The size of the market. Every company nowadays has an IT department and the increasing need for transparency to the data makes our product a perfect fit for all organization sizes. And at a fraction of the price of most Business Intelligence tools, companies will jump at the chance to incorporate this into their EMS. Also, as previously mentioned, our dashboard technology is not limited by certain vendors. As long as the application housing the information has a database behind it, our dashboard can display it. Information from all over your organization displayed from one screen.
6. XCEND has a mentor in SageCreek Partners. SageCreek is made up of the management team that took Altiris from nothing to a $440M company before selling it to Symantec for just over $1 Billion to Symantec in 2007. With their guidance and connections, XCEND is in great position to capitalize on this un-served customer need.
VP/SVP/Dept Head
XCEND Group
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Service Provider
Location:
Description:
While we have been in business for about 4 years, XCEND has recently re-crafted its strategy that previously focused on Enterprise Systems Management, but will now add on to that a Security & Compliance practice which will both feed into our ultimate vision of becoming a product company aimed at being a leader in a new niche, which we have coined “Business Intelligence for IT”.
To give you a bit of background, XCEND Group Inc. is boutique IT Consulting & Asset Management firm. We have been in business for nearly five years, acting primarily as a solution provider or value added reseller
Services Provided:
- INVALID
- Accounting Services
- Business Consulting
- IT System Development