Software firm in 'hyper-growth mode'

Vend's Vaughan Rowsell says he is expecting a lot of growth and innovation this year. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Point-of-sale software company Vend has grown to more than 200 staff and seven offices worldwide, and chief executive Vaughan Rowsell expects it to keep expanding.

"We're still in hyper-growth mode and it's all about how quickly we can scale, so there's going to be a lot of growth and innovation [this year] for us," Rowsell said.

The company raised more than $30 million of capital early on, which Rowsell said had been essential.

"At the start we did fairly modest capital raising rounds, and we worked out a strategy to build up enough capital to fund at least 12 to 18 months' worth of growth," he said. "It's very hard to bootstrap that kind of growth so raising capital was absolutely critical for us in the early stages and ongoing."

A wave of technology was changing how companies operated, including how they interacted with customers and how people shopped and paid for products and services, he said.

New technology could help companies cut costs, although the rate of change could be unnerving.

"There is so much innovation happening and technology is moving so quick, that it's kind of scary and I think it unnerves some of the small business owners and the big guys too," Rowsell said. "If you've made such a huge investment into the technology you're using today, the thought of a whole new platform or a whole new way of doing things being just around the corner is scary.

"The good news is that the price point is getting lower so the cost to adopt new technology has never been lower and it's just going to keep getting lower and lower."

The company had not seriously considered listing, but it was a possibility in the future, he said.