Xero Co-founder Hamish Edwards Invests In Qontro ERP Platform

Press release first published: Friday, 3 September 2021

19% investment to drive growth of the cloud-based platform

New Zealand-based Qontro* has taken a major step in its growth strategy with the news that Xero co-founder Hamish Edwards has taken a 19% shareholding in the growing tech firm.

Hamish Edwards takes on an advisory role to the Board. His investment will be applied to the programme of product development and business growth that is already underway. Founded in New Zealand in 2004 and based in Takapuna, Auckland, Qontro is a cloud-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that integrates point of sale, inventory management, full accounting system and B2B store within one package. A pioneer in cloud deployment, Qontro is a powerful and proven application with significant growth potential.

With clients across the trades merchants and import distribution sectors, Qontro counts national hardware suppliers ITM and Buildlink among its customer base. Charles Cook, Managing Director of Qontro, said: “We are delighted that someone of Hamish's calibre and experience sees the same huge potential of Qontro that we do. Along with our whole team I am excited to be working with Hamish to realise our growth goals.

We help larger businesses than those in Xero's sweet spot; organisations turning over $10m+ to $500m, single or multi branch, with 20,000 plus SKUs, sending thousands of invoices every month. With a current focus in the construction trade merchant sector, Qontro is perfectly suited to any trade or retail business selling large numbers of inventory items."

Hamish Edwards said: “There is currently a big hole in the market where SMEs have outgrown Xero and need to move on to a full ERP system, but do not want to suffer the massive cost of the existing options. Qontro fits as the natural step up from Xero for growing SMEs.

"Over the next phase Qontro will evolve the product into a multi-layer user experience that we now expect from a Web 2.0 business. We will grow the team by recruiting the next group of high achievers that will help to grow the reach and delivery of the software to thousands of SMEs.

"Charles and his team have a great product, that with sensible and rapid evolution will be an excellent choice for business owners all over NZ and Australia. I am looking forward to helping with the future growth of this exciting Kiwi business."

*Qontro was previously known as eAccounts Global Limited and re-branded to Qontro in August 2022