intelliHR has announced a $5.5m capital raise to drive its global expansion, which includes a $2.5m investment by billionaire tech investor Bevan Slattery. (Pic: Getty)
Tech
It’s been a big morning for HR tech company intelliHR (ASX:IHR), which ripped higher on a capital raise announcement.
The deal involves billionaire tech investor Bevan Slattery, who’s taken a $2.5m stake in the company via a share placement priced at 7.5c.
Rounding out the $5.5m raise is a non-renounceable rights issue to eligible shareholders, who can take up one IHR share for every five they own.
The issue price was non-discounted, coming in at a slight premium to IHR’s last traded stock price of 7.3.
Shares in the company promptly surged to 20 cents at the opening bell — the highest level since January 2019:
Commenting on the deal, Slattery weighed in on the post-COVID trend towards remote working solutions. And he said his investment was driven by a conviction that workplace practices have “suddenly shifted forever”.
“One of the key challenges we are facing now that we have moved to a totally distributed workforce, is how do we improve the way in which we engage with and understand our teams around the world?”, Slattery said.
He added that IHR can play “a pivotal role” in that transition, with the $2.5m investment providing support for the company to “leverage the potential of their platform globally”.
Slattery has been active in capital markets lately, having also made a separate $2.5m investment in geospatial analytics company Pointerra (ASX:3DP). Shares in 3DP are up by around 230 per cent since that announcement on July 14.
IHR said the funds from its $5.5m raise will be allocated towards a bigger marketing budget, including new sales staff, for the North American market — a key focus for the company having opened a Toronto office in June.
The company will also deploy capital on R&D initiatives, particularly around the use of artificial intelligence to drive improved data analytics for the intelliHR people management platform.
Lastly, the company said the money will be used to fund general working capital as it pursues a global expansion, with the staged goal increasing subscriber numbers above the 30,000 mark.
