Northern Ireland software player Oroson raises £1.2m

18 Oct 2018

Boojum marketing manager Nuala McMenamin and Oroson founder Daniel McGlade. Image: Oroson

A further £1.2m funding round is planned for 2019 as Oroson addresses the productivity challenges all firms face.

Productivity software-as-a-service (SaaS) player Oroson has received a £1.2m investment from Co-Fund NI and private investors.

The company, which was established in 2013 to transform how companies, teams and individuals work, aims to use the investment to develop its software, which enables businesses to increase productivity by streamlining workflows.

‘It is estimated we spend over 60pc of our time managing our work rather than doing the work’
– DANIEL MCGLADE

In addition to the investment, the company has been offered £350,000 of support from Invest Northern Ireland (NI) towards R&D and the creation of three new jobs.

Procrastination-killer

Not only does Oroson improve collaboration among teams through its real-time communication features, but the visual nature of the platform helps to drive creativity.

Oroson founder and CEO Daniel McGlade said: “We have had an incredible year to date and have seen our product and company grow from strength to strength thanks to investments from Co-Fund NI, Invest NI and private investors, and of course all of our valuable clients who have signed up to our solution.

“In developing Oroson, my goal was to address the productivity challenges we all face. It is estimated we spend over 60pc of our time managing our work rather than doing the work. That’s before we even deal with the effects of constant context-switching between tasks, which is known to cost us 20pc of our available working time for each additional project we work on. I wanted to deliver a tool that enables businesses to get more done, more effectively and more efficiently across teams and locations.

“Five years in, I have nine full-time staff and we all work remotely. Our own use of Oroson is testament to how it facilitates effective team-working, especially from multiple locations.”

Clients of Oroson include Mexican restaurant chain Boojum, public sector body Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council, and the Irish Football Association, as well as one of the world’s largest banks.

“Oroson is a fantastic platform,” said Nuala McMenamin, head of marketing at Boojum. “It delivers major benefits for the Boojum team. It’s highly visual, creates efficiencies and we work much better as a team because of Oroson. As soon as we start any new piece of work, our priority is to create an Oroson board to add all our content to. The team loves it as it simply enables us to do our work.”

A further £1.2m funding round has been planned for early 2019 by Oroson to support further business growth.

Finance for Co-Fund NI is provided by Invest NI and supported by the European Regional Development Fund under the EU Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme 2014-2020.

“We are proud to support Oroson as they develop tools to improve how people collaborate,” said Chris Trotter, portfolio manager for Clarendon Fund Managers, which manages the Co-Fund NI programme. “Oroson highlights the standard of talent that Northern Ireland has to offer to the global software market. The company and its staff have already achieved significant milestones to date.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com