How the channel helped this Aussie start-up penetrate the enterprise sphere

Nitro CEO, Sam Chandler

Australian document software start-up, Nitro, has leveraged the channel to transition from being an SME-focused player to an “established enterprise tech vendor”, the company said.

Attributing its success in the enterprise market segment to its channel partners, Insight, Software One, Dimension Data and Data #3, Nitro said it has seen a successful transition with enterprise sales increasing at an average of nearly 40 per cent in 2015 and 2016.

Nitro was founded in Melbourne in 2005 and is now headquartered in San Francisco. The company is best known as a competitor to Adobe Acrobat as its focus hones in on document productivity and workflow.

Since launch, the company has seen significant growth, adding more than 300 new enterprise customers in 2016.

While the majority of Nitro’s 600,000 business customers are small-medium sized businesses, the start-up pivoted 18 months ago to pursue a new strategy targeting large enterprise CIOs and specifically, helping them switch from Adobe to Nitro’s document management software.

Through the channel, Nitro has secured large businesses like Bluescope Steel, NSW Police, Toyota, Pfizer, CBRE, BNY Mellon, Treasury Wine Estates and Murray Goulburn.

“CIOs choose to work with us to accelerate digital transformation because we’re a true partner,” said Nitro founder and chief executive, Sam Chandler.

“Not only do we offer solutions that solve the most common document productivity challenges while delivering measurable and meaningful return on investment, we also provide a customer success and service experience that is second to none and a real value differentiator for our customers.”

Off the back of the enterprise wins, Nitro also secured US$15m in VC funding from Battery Ventures to further its push into the enterprise. To date, Nitro has received total funding of US$36.6m.

“This funding round will support our aggressive growth plans and further fuel our R&D efforts to continue on our mission to make documents smarter,” added Chandler.

The capital raise was lead by global investment firm Battery Ventures and local investors, Regal Funds Management and Alium Capital.

According to Battery Ventures board member and partner, Michael Brown, the Nitro opportunity is massive.

“Nitro has a big opportunity to disrupt the document productivity market with its innovative technology and promising product roadmap,” he said.

“Nitro also has a top-notch management team in place to lead the company into its next chapter in growth—including selling into large enterprises.”

In May last year, Nitro APAC director, Adam Nowiski told ARN roughly 70 - 80 per cent of its business is direct, but explained that figure adjusts seasonally depending on the region.

At the time, he said the company had global distribution and reseller relationships, and in the Asia Pacific region, had 10 partners.

“We’ve got global relationships with enterprise software resellers who do have offices in Singapore and that’s been part of the conversations that we’ve had,” he said at the time.

“In some point in the next 12 - 18 months, we would consider putting someone on the ground, but in the meantime, the capacity for our channel partners to deliver our story is pretty significant.”

“We haven’t spent a huge amount of time developing the channel market, because what we find is that they come to us. Some of our largest deals, both direct and indirect, have come from the Asia Pacific region.”