A cyber-security play in the game of securing TOP SECRET government information has launched a $10 million initial public offering ahead of an ASX listing.

Canberra-based archTIS – an amalgam of “architecture” and “trusted information system” – aims to solve the problem of “how to share information, while avoiding it falling into the wrong hands”.

Founder Bruce Talbot launched the business in 2005 after creating an information sharing platform to host classified information from the United States and Australian governments.

The platform lets staff access this classified information (which the prospectus cites as “TOP SECRET” in capital letters eight times) according to their security clearance levels.

archTIS provides security consulting to the federal government, including security systems for the Australian Defence Force and a “helicopter dock data management” program that works with the Navy’s logistics services.

Chief executive Daniel Lai told Stockhead archTIS had prepared for its listing journey by compiling a board of “the highest calibre”.

Heavyweight board

Board members include Rudd and Gillard front-bencher Stephen Smith and former Xero (ASX:XRO) sales boss Leanne Grahame.

“The market demand from governments and industry to solve the challenges of collaborating on and sharing information securely — a problem we have solved — has meant that the timing was right to grow the business to meet this demand with products and solutions that are proven and trusted by the Australian Department of Defence,” Mr Lai told Stockhead.

archTIS had a 12-year track record of delivering on global information security, he said.

“We are an Australian company that is leading the world in the next generation of Secure Content and Collaboration products and it seemed natural to invite Australian investors to join us on that journey.”

archTIS hopes to raise $8 million selling 40 million shares at 20c each, with the chance raise another $2 million if the offer is oversubscribed. 

Some $2 million is slated for project development work.

The company’s key projects are called Konjensi and DataKloak, which have a range of features to let governments share data securely and manage access privileges across complex networks where staff have different security clearance levels.

Mr Lai and founder Bruce Talbot, who is now the chief technology officer, each own an 8.7 per cent stake in the business, which will drop to around 5 per cent each after the IPO.

At the end of December, the company generated $131,000 in revenue and posted a loss of $934,000. It had $2.5 million cash in the bank at the end of 2017.

The offer is open from July 27 to August 17 ahead of an ASX listing on August 27.

More information at www.archtis.com.

Featured Companies

You might be interested in