Executive Insight: CEO Glenn Milnes Talks Listing on Australian Stock Exchange

We recently announced our new IPO listing in Australia, so we sat down with CEO Glenn Milnes to get his take on what this move means for ikeGPS.

ikeGPS recently went public on the Australian stock exchange. How do you see this move affecting the business in the long term?

We now access one of the biggest stock exchanges and capital markets in the world and exepct that this will be a positive factor as we continue to grow. In the short term, it’s also brought us more commercial exposure in the Australian market for future sales.

ikeGPS recently closed a placement round. How does this help continue to accelerate our company and our products?

The recent placement round was from some strong institutional investors – both new and existing. This allows us to continune to invest in sales, marketing and software development. In our Seattle office, we’re building a software team to enhance the Spike app’s capabilities and its integration platforms. While we don’t expect to deliver any new hardware platforms in the near future, we plan to keep scaling in terms of people and investment in projects that have a fast payback for the business.

We also recently extended our agreement with Stanley Black & Decker until 2019. Our updated agreement will give us much improved returns for the Smart Measure Pro, and we can continue to leverage Stanley Black & Decker’s incredibly strong distribution channels around the world.

The IKE 4 team put on a roadshow on the U.S. in December. What was the reason for setting up this roadshow, and what do you hope will be accomplished?

The IKE 4 roadshow puts us in front of key customers and decision-makers to give us feedback on what they think about the solution and ideas about what to do next. It has been a great way to structure our customer and prospect visits and learn how we can better meet their needs.

Spike has seen a lot of success in the signage and graphics industry. Are there other related markets where Spike could capitalize on its success?

Window film has the potential to be a great next market for us. Spike delivers a strong value proposition to window film shops in terms of their field measurements and estimating requirements, and our team has engaged with a lot of the key players in the North American market. I’m excited to see how that segment grows.

We’re also excited to have recently launched Spike for ArcGIS to the Esri community. Esri is GIS software that is used by about 350,000 businesses around the world as well as most of the U.S. government. In order to enter this market, we had to develop a specific app and data formatting requirements. Beta users are currently testing the platform.

As you prepared for the move to the Australian stock exchange, you spent a lot of time traveling to Australia. What did you notice about the Australian market?

The Australian capital markets are incredibly vibrant. Probably more so than anywhere in the world, Australian investors are highly engaged in all classes of investment activity. In our short time since listing on the Australian stock exchange, we’ve already identified some lucrative sales opportunities in Australia.

What’s coming up for ikeGPS in the near future?

With the new calendar year around the corner, we’re busy reinforcing our long-term strategy and putting in place the near-term plans and objectives as related to the next financial year. It’s always an exciting time to think about the new markets and customers we can deliver value to and the additional areas in which we can continue to grow.

For more information on ikeGPS’ move to the Australian stock exchange, please visit our Investor Relations page.