Martello Technologies is getting a multimillion-dollar funding boost as it looks to bounce back from a pandemic-fuelled slump that stalled a years-long stretch of virtually uninterrupted growth.
The Kanata-based software firm has landed $2.5 million from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, the company announced earlier this month. Martello says it plans to use the fresh capital to expand its software development team and market its flagship Vantage DX troubleshooting software for Microsoft users.
The new funding arrives as Martello is coming off two consecutive quarters of relatively flat revenue growth.
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The Kanata-based network troubleshooting software company booked revenues of $4.46 million for the three-month period ending Dec. 31, down from $4.63 million a year earlier. Those results followed a quarter in which Martello’s revenues were flat compared with the previous fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the company’s share price on the TSX Venture Exchange has tumbled from 20 cents last spring to just six cents at the close of Wednesday’s trading.
But CEO John Proctor is forecasting better days ahead for the 110-person firm, which was a regular fixture on OBJ’s list of Ottawa’s fastest-growing companies just a few years ago.
Martello said Wednesday its free trial pipeline for Vantage DX has doubled to more than one million users since the beginning of January.
‘Incredibly cool’
“That’s incredibly cool for us as a company,” Proctor told Techopia on Wednesday, adding that so far Martello has converted 70 per cent of those trials into paid subscriptions – what he called an “incredibly high” rate for the industry.
Released in December, Vantage DX gives users of Microsoft products such as Excel, PowerPoint and Teams real-time intelligence into network roadblocks and bottlenecks that can slow down the applications and make them less efficient.
Martello’s new offering helps IT experts pinpoint the exact source of data congestion – be it a wonky home network, a malfunctioning server or a breakdown in the service provider’s infrastructure – and can even head off potential issues before they occur by doing a “dry run” of Team calls and other software applications before they happen in real time.
“The guy on the help desk can say, ‘Ah, I can see exactly what the problem is,’” Proctor explained.
Buoyed by Vantage DX’s high conversion rate and the pending return to in-person meetings and trade shows that are the bread and butter of smaller firms such as Martello, the CEO believes the Kanata company is on the verge of a turnaround.
Proctor says he expects the firm’s headcount will approach 150 by this time next year as it adds more developers as well as sales and marketing staff in a push to deliver Vantage DX to even more customers.
“I think the whole company feels we can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “The question is, how fast is that light coming towards us and can we manage that speed. That’s where the FedDev money comes in.”
