Chameleon Creator founder and chief executive Todd Hammington.
Chameleon Creator founder and chief executive Todd Hammington.
A firm run by a Wānaka designer has seen its revenue jump 50% to $2 million over the past year after signing TikTok and other top clients.
Todd Hammington’s Chameleon Creator has always done well, but he says it‘s levelled up over the past few months, in part down to him realising he had a blind spot - then correcting it.
Hammington - who cut his teeth at Trade Me as a visual designer - founded Chameleon in 2021 when it was spun out of Inspire Group, and serves as its founding CEO.
Its software is used to create e-learning modules - online explainers, which can include clips - that companies can use to show new employees the ropes, or get them up to speed with new in-house tools (like new AI software), or compliance obligations.
That‘s nothing new, but Hammington says Chameleon makes it easy for anyone to create content, or track how much of it is actually being digested by staff, and to what degree it‘s sinking in, without having to bolt on third-party analytics.
He points to hero clients like ANZ Bank, where Chameleon has been used to create content to train 8000 staff on both sides of the Tasman, plus India, Singapore and Fiji.
Another is Mercury, which used Chameleon to create more than 800 hours of training content - in days, rather than the usual weeks - after buying Trustpower.
Chameleon Creator aims to democratise course design by making it easier for non-experts to create or customise e-learning modules.
Last October, Chameleon signed TikTok. The social media giant is using the Kiwi product to create learning and development modules in Singapore, then distributing them to its staff worldwide, Hammington says.
The marque digital account was landed with old-fashioned face-to-face networking after TikTok sent a crew to a learning and development conference in Australia, where Chameleon was among the exhibitors.
Last month, Briscoes, Westpac, Cricket Australia and Medibank (a major Aussie health insurer) were added to the Chameleon roster, joining the likes of Contact Energy, Mitre 10, ASB, Petronas, the NRL, Sharesies, the Ministry of Health, various councils around Australia and NZ and Canva.
What‘s behind the recent surge?
“I’m an animator and illustrator by trade,” Hammington says.
In the best tradition of startups, he started working on the Chameleon concept after he found existing tools wanting. He saw the need to create something, easy, faster, cheaper and more appealing to Gen-Z types to watch on their mobile at the gym.
Staff have doubled to 12 over the past year.
The firm’s cloud-based software, sold by subscription (beginning with a solo sub that costs $1500 per year), has seen its annualised revenue rate (ARR) jump 50% to $2m versus this time in 2024.
Why the jump?
“I started hiring people who were better than me - and revenue was one of my blind spots as a CEO because I was a design-head CEO,” Hammington says.
“So I hired a CRO [chief revenue officer]. Her name’s Lucy Luo and she really highlighted what parts of our engine work really well and we’ve doubled down on those.”
Luo helped another Kiwi startup, First AML, scale at pace as its director of international growth.
Ironically, the persistent downturn has been a positive, of sorts.
“There’s no hiding the fact that companies are tightening their belts and it‘s a bit of a down market. Our tool really helps businesses looking to create efficiencies.”
The founder says Chameleon is on track to break even later this year, but adds that as an essentially bootstrapped firm - Hammington and Inspire’s Wellington-based CEO Dan Tohill are the largest individual shareholders - it‘s always had a tight focus on cashflow.
Chameleon was founded in 2021 with the pandemic still in full swing. Hammington says it wasn’t created in a reaction to Covid, but lockdowns did inform its fully-remote structure, which it has maintained to his day, with Hammington working from his home in Wānaka and his staff dotted around NZ and Australia.
“There have been a couple of term sheets put on the table,” Hammington says.
“But I’ve really enjoyed the sustainable growth that we’ve created, and it puts us in a position where we don’t need to raise.”
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald‘s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
