VMob moving Stateside and raising funds to speed up growth

Scott Bradley, chief executive and founder of mobile marketing company VMob. Photo / Greg Bowker

VMob, the NZAX-listed mobile technology company, is moving its headquarters to San Francisco, planning to shift to the main NZX board and raise about $5 million in a private share placement.

The company's mobile marketing platform delivers personalised, location-based promotional offers to mobile phone users on behalf of major brands.

At its annual meeting in Auckland yesterday, chairman Phil Norman said the board thought it was critical VMob had a stronger presence in the US to build market awareness and interest from strategic investors, and be closer to its large customers.

"Considering all these factors, our board has decided that the company's head office will be relocated to San Francisco. All customer-facing activity will be driven from there but software development, operations and back-office functions will remain in New Zealand," he said.

Chief executive Scott Bradley will relocate to the US from September.

The company said last week it had pushed out a planned ASX listing because of ongoing commercial negotiations and so management could focus on business momentum.

Yesterday, Norman said the initial motivation to list on the ASX was driven by board frustration at the valuation of the company while listed on the NZAX, the secondary board that will be replaced by the NXT market within the next two years.

Given the company needs additional working capital before the end of the year, which it had hoped to raise in an Australian IPO, it is now planning to undertake a further private placement in New Zealand and Australia targeting qualifying investors. Most of the roughly $5 million to be raised will be used to speed up the company's US push.

"The board is conscious of the dilutionary impact of a further capital raising on existing shareholders, but the new capital is essential to enable the business to capture the opportunities that our team has worked so hard over the past few years to create," Norman said.

The company has raised $2.17 million of new capital from investors in the 2015 financial year, $3 million in a private placement and $377,000 from existing investors.

VMob reported a 474 per cent increase in revenue for the year ended March 31, at $2.94 million, and a net loss of $4.39 million.