Christchurch's Syft raises $23m from new US investor, eyes pharmaceutical market

New Syft chief executive Alex Fala. Photo / Supplied

Christchurch-based Syft Technologies - a maker of devices that can "sniff" air quality - has raised $22.8 million from Ampersand Capital Partners.

The Boston-based Ampersand will take a 19.6 per cent stake, subject to shareholder approval.

As things stand today, ACC is the largest investor with a 19.7 per cent stake, followed by Ngāi Tahu Capital on 12 per cent (estranged former CEO and investor Doug Hastie has now sold out).

Chief executive Alex Fala told the Herald that the semi-conductor market - where air has to be monitored for ultra-cleanliness - had been Syft's major market recently. But Ampersand - which has expertise in the mass spectrometry technology behind Syft's products - had identified pharmaceuticals as a new growth area for the Christchurch company. The pharma angle was the key to Ampersand coming on board.

Big Pharma has boomed during the pandemic, but Fala said Syft had a much wider opportunity in pharmaceuticals, where he says Syft's spectrometers can analyse samples much faster than the competition.

The CEO said over the past 24 months, Covid had been problematic for Syft. Border restrictions mean it had difficulty accessing customers. Around 40 staff had been hired "in-country" offshore to be close to major customers.

The firm now has around 150 staff in total. Fala said there would be more hires in Christchurch as it ramped up R&D with its new funding, which would be geared in part to its pharmaceutical push.

Syft, which is on the Unlisted platform for trading private equity stakes - also issued a business update today.

The firm now expects full-year revenue of $34m or 18 per cent growth for its current financial year, which wraps up on March 31, after a fall-back in 2021. There was no profit/loss guidance.

In the first half, Syft's revenue increased from the year-ago $15.3m to $20.4m, while net profit improved from $1.9m to $3.4m.

Fala says the revenue growth could have been large, but the pandemic delayed a number of key deals.

"We have a large pipeline, including significant potential orders from our major customers. We had aimed for more of that revenue to come into the 2022 financial year, but that hasn't ultimately met with our customers' operational plans and the impacts of the Omicron outbreak."

Major investor ACC rolled then-CEO Doug Hastie from Syft's board in September 2020, and he departed as chief executive in December that year.

Fala - a former chief executive of point-of-sale software company Vend, came onboard as Syft's new CEO in early 2021.

He said the reaction from shareholders to the proposed Ampersand investment has been positive.

Fala told the Herald he had continued to live in Auckland, where he has three children in school, and was commuting to Christchurch.

With Syft about to go on a recruiting drive funded by its new capital from Ampersand, his selling point was clear.

"Come to Christchurch. The houses are much cheaper than Auckland," he said.

Fala said the city's expanding tech scene also appealed.

Geologic software maker Seequent, which was bought by Nasdaq-listed Bently Systems last year for $1.45 billion, was growing quickly. So was online autoparts market startup Partly, which recently raised $4m at a $50m valuation in a round supported by Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck.