Invigor Group (ASX:IVO) has shaken up its boardroom line-up after completing its $10 million acquisition of retail e-commerce analytics startup, Sprooki.
The publicly-listed big data company revealed in April that it had signed the $10 million deal for Sprooki, in a move that was partially aimed at offering retailers an "antidote" to increased competition from new market entrants such as Amazon.
“With the imminent arrival of Amazon, something that has been much publicised in Australia recently, we have witnessed a surge of interest in data-driven digital solutions that can address loyalty, pricing and shopper behaviour,” Invigor chairman and CEO, Gary Cohen, said at the time.
“With the Sprooki acquisition, we will now have the necessary range of solutions to provide the antidote that these enterprise and SME customers need to compete more effectively in an increasingly competitive retail environment,” he said.
Now, with the acquisition’s share purchase agreement coming to completion, Invigor – which counts itself as a Cisco partner – confirmed the appointment of three new directors to its board as part of the deal.
Former CIO of Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, and former CFO of Lendlease, Bob McKinnon, has been appointed non-executive chairman for the company, while former Scentre Group retail relations general manager, Jack Hanrahan, joins the board as an independent non-executive director.
As had been previously flagged, Sprooki co-founders, Claire Mula and Michael Gethen, have also assumed senior leadership roles at Invigor.
Mula has been appointed as chief operating officer and joins the Invigor board as executive director, while Gethen, who will be based in Singapore, will head up the group’s Asian operations.
“The acquisition of Sprooki has significantly strengthened Invigor’s tendering pipeline and the company expects to progressively convert tenders into new recurring revenue-generating contracts from this month onwards,” the company told shareholders on 6 July.
“With the Sprooki technology, Invigor is confident it has unrivalled capability in loyalty and applied data solutions to deliver the best predictive and prescriptive analytics to retailers, leading brands, shopping malls and venues in Australia, Europe, and now Asia,” it said.
The company said the first of “a number” of new contracts will be reported soon.
When it first announced the acquisition, Invigor said that Sprooki was forecast to add more than $2 million of revenue to its business in FY18.
At the time of publication, Invigor Group's shares were trading at $0.013.
