Office productivity software firm raises €1m investment


29 Jan 2009

A Dublin-based office productivity software firm that attracted 50,000 users after just six months has raised €1m in venture capital as part of a round led by AIB Seed Capital.

OfficeMetrics, formerly known as Openplain software, aims to become the world’s leading office productivity software company, and is adding up to 15,000 personal users worldwide every month.

The investment round was led by AIB Seed Capital Fund, which is co-managed by the Dublin Business Innovation Centre (DBIC). The investment round also included Enterprise Ireland and private investors.

OfficeMetrics was established in 2006 by Jonathan Mulligan and Damien O’Brien, and went live in May 2008.

The company’s technology is designed to enable individuals and their employers to track, analyse and compare personal, team and organisation-wide productivity. 

Its free online service www.officemetrics.com has gone from zero to 50,000 members in just six months, and now has users in 89 countries. Some 30pc of users are in the US, 15pc in Japan and 8pc each in Ireland and Brazil.  The company is adding 15,000 new users per month.

OfficeMetrics automatically records time spent working with applications, websites and individual documents such as spreadsheets and emails.

It also tracks start times, close times and even idle times when employees may be taking breaks or in meetings. It recently introduced a ‘paid-for’ online professional edition and an out-of-the-box enterprise edition, and has completed deals with several high-profile companies. 

The new funding raised will enable the company to further develop its secure hosting infrastructure, allowing seamless international growth.  It will also start investing in the development of its global sales, channel and marketing presence.

“The real driver is helping employees to be more productive,” explained Jonathan Mulligan, managing director, OfficeMetrics.

“We have all picked up little bad habits that eat in to our time. Even a 2pc increase in productivity can enable a 50-person organisation to add €50,000 directly to the bottom line. It is this very strong ability to deliver a return on investment that is propelling our growth.

By John Kennedy

Pictured (l-r) are Alex Hobbs, DBIC and Jonathan Mulligan, managing director, OfficeMetrics