Acer backs NZ call centre firm

By Adam Gifford

Auckland company Voice Technology has just secured $1 million in venture capital from giant Taiwanese PC manufacturer Acer to help it increase United States sales of its Cuemaster call centre and Paradigm voice mail products.

The money is conditional on Voice Technology finding matching funds from investors in this part of the world.

"We're well down the track on that," said co-founder Miles Valentine.

Dr Steven Cheng, president of Acer's $US50 million Hontung Venture Capital Fund, said it was common practice to share risk in high technology investments.

"It's a matter of principle. You like to have other investors who are doing their own independent assessment," Dr Cheng said. "The right kind of partner can also bring additional value. The company needs more than just money."

Voice Technology was established in 1994 by Mr Valentine and Michael Curlett, after they sold PBX reseller Telephone Technology to UBix. "We had a pretty stiff restraint of trade saying we couldn't get back into that business for three years, so we thought the next stage would be computer technology," Mr Valentine said.

Cuemaster and Paradigm allow operators and office staff to run telephony applications from Windows PCs, and include features such as screen pops, callback and integration with local area networks (LANs).

Cuemaster is designed for up to 250 users, the size of its Compaq Australia site, while the largest customer site with Paradigm is Palmerston North City Council with 400 users. Voice Technology has about 100 customers in New Zealand and 280 in Australia, where Cuemaster is licensed to NEC.

Last year it had revenues of $6 million with annual growth of 100 per cent a year for the past four years. It has 50 staff.

Mr Valentine said the first approach to Dr Cheng was made last October at an investment forum organised by Trade New Zealand.

"We need the money to speed up our entry into export markets in the United States, Australia and Asia, and speed up the development process," he said. Dr Cheng said he was impressed by the quality of the technology and the fact it was relatively inexpensive, making it attractive to the Asian market where call centre development was in its infancy.

While Acer was one of Taiwan's largest private sector manufacturer and one of the top 10 PC brands worldwide, it is not strong on software or telecommunications technologies. Hontung Venture Capital Fund is an attempt to redress that.

Hontung's $1 million buys it just over 10 per cent of Voice Technology's shares.