Export Report

Catherine Beard reports on why the sky’s the limit for tech start-up exporter WhosOnLocation.

While in San Francisco recently I bumped into a tech start-up that’s been flying under the radar while quietly doing some mightily impressive work providing a smart solution for people presence management.
The seed for WhosOnLocation was planted when founder Darren Whitaker-Barnett was evacuated from a building. The whole process was such a shambles (with one employee found still working at their desk), that he decided there must be a safer, more efficient and convenient way of managing the verification of people safety in the event of an evacuation.

It turns out there is – all thanks to Whitaker-Barnett’s focus on customer research, product development and ‘the cloud’.
WhosOnLocation is now a cloud-based service that enables organisations to manage the presence of employees, visitors and contractors. It automatically sends emails and SMS notifications to employees when their visitors arrive onsite, allows users to manage contractor authorities to be onsite, and provides a variety of ways for employees to register their presence in any of their employer’s locations. But its most powerful application is in the area of evacuation management.
When natural disasters such as earthquakes happen, shattering traditional paradigms around what is considered stable, safe and secure – i.e. the ground – the ‘cloud’ is the safest place to base operations.

This new approach to managing people’s safety and location is attracting an increasing and impressive list of global clients for WhosOnLocation. These include globally recognised names such as AssaAbloy, Bendon, Colorpak, Wormald and Digicel.
WhosOnLocation will be used to manage people at America’s Cup events and has been signed up by Unilever – which has a turnover of 46.5 billion.
For a start-up that has boot-strapped its way forward driven by the passion and personal investment of Whitaker-Barnett and his co-investor and operations manager Victoria Armstrong, WhosOnLocation is packing a powerful punch on the global stage. The service is being used by government, corporate, manufacturing, construction and high-security clients in Australasia, Pacific Islands, South Africa, and most recently, North America and Asia.
Leads are flooding into the office from around the world, and the biggest challenge now is prioritising these against the firm’s two areas of focus for the next six months: launching its new smartphone app and securing a minimum of US$5 million in venture capital.

As part of WhosOnLocation’s mobile strategy the latest version of their world class evacuation verification, ‘mobiEvac’, is due to be released on 1st September.
“This opportunity is an exciting development in our company as it’s the first time we are partnering with a major global distribution channel,” says Armstrong. “We’ll be making a formal announcement when we launch in September.”
Timing of the funding round is now of the essence in order to take advantage of the wave of opportunities and leads from around the world.
After a recent prospecting tour of the US, Canada and Hong Kong, Whitaker-Barnett and Armstrong are at a decision-making crossroads.
Given their product’s compelling proposition and client credibility, the goal of becoming ‘the Apple of the people presence management space’, a US half-billion dollar company in five years, and billion dollar company in ten years, seems realistic.

Catherine Beard is executive director of Export NZ.