With a £3 million investment, a U.K.-based company has kicked off its expansion across the pond.
Based just outside of Glasgow in East Kilbride, SHE Software, a cloud-based business-to-business health and safety software company, quietly opened its Chicago office in April with the goal of tapping into the U.S. market.
SHE Software currently has nine U.S. employees, four of whom work in its downtown office. The company plans to add another two or three hires within the next two to three months, and is considering opening up other offices elsewhere in the U.S., said SHE Software CEO Matthew Elson, adding that it’s “up in the air” where the company will land next.
“We wanted somewhere that was reasonably close in terms of time zone to the U.K.,” Elson said. “Chicago is extremely well-connected. It’s a great hub, because we need quite a lot of traveling. It’s also a great metropolitan for talent.”
SHE Software provides businesses with software that helps reduce risk in the workplace. Its software platform, Assure, is used by more than 850 organizations who use the product to track, manage and report safety issues across their businesses. Its customers are in manufacturing, construction, and energy and utilities.
In February, the company received £3 million (nearly $4 million U.S. dollars) from U.K.-based private equity firm NVM Private Equity, which financed its U.S. expansion. Prior to arriving in the U.S., the company had set up shop in New Zealand. The company lists clients such as London City Airport, the Department for International Development in the U.K. and Weston College in the U.K. So far, the company has lined up one undisclosed U.S. client and aims to continue building up its customer base.
“Most organizations, even quite large organizations, are performing their health and safety duties with Excel spreadsheets, pen and paper, homegrown SharePoint solutions, et cetera,” Elson said. “There’s a big opportunity out there, for sure—an untapped market.”
SHE Software sees companies like Gensuite and MetricStream as competitors, it aims to stand out by a more user-friendly platform and that regularly updates—typically every few weeks—without requiring cumbersome reconfiguring for clients, Elson said. The startup is currently targeting customers in manufacturing, a “strong sector ” for the company in the U.K., and is looking for prospects in manufacturing hub such as Los Angeles, Houston, New York and Detroit, he added.
“If we are successful, then there will be a time when we can see 50 percent of our revenues coming from North America,” Elson said.
