Home Articles Aussie retail tech innovator Neto expands into US following strong local growth

Aussie retail tech innovator Neto expands into US following strong local growth

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Fast-growing Australian retail management platform, Neto, will expand into the US market and open a Denver-based office following its strong 55 percent year-on-year Australian revenue growth in fiscal year 2018.

Over the past 12-months Neto has experienced unprecedented growth across a number of performance metrics. These include its largest year-on-year increase in revenues across its entire 9-year history, as well as a 41 percent increase in merchant sales transaction activity to $1.5 billion annually. To support this growth over the past three years Neto has tripled its employee numbers to approximately 150 people.

In 2018 the company also developed key marketplace integrations with Amazon and Google, and integrated a number of new partner offerings into its platform including SmartrMail, Streetpricer, Rejoiner, Seko and Glew.io.

What is behind Neto’s growth?

“Not only is Neto growing, but what’s really pleasing to see is our customers sales transaction activity has increased significantly by 41 percent year-on-year to be more than $1.5 billion annually,” said Ryan Murtagh, CEO and founder of Neto.

“The overall number of items shipped across all of our customer product categories increased by 44 percent, and the overall number of active users on our point-of-sale (POS) interface increased 77 percent year-on-year.”

Australian-founded and owned, Neto is the industry’s only retail and wholesale management platform that provides a complete solution for eCommerce (including an Amazon management platform), POS, inventory and fulfilment for small-medium sized retailers. Many of Neto’s customers were amongst the first Australian retailers to sell on Amazon when it launched in December 2017. Today Neto counts more than 3000 online retail merchants as its customers.

“When you consider the total available market in the US is 30-times the size of Australia, we’re anticipating a very healthy start and ongoing growth trajectory come September,” said Murtagh.

“We chose Denver as our base for a number of reasons but primarily because Denver is culturally aligned to Brisbane in terms of its strong start-up tech community and the experienced talent available,” said Murtagh.

What next for Neto?

Murtagh will relocate for several months to Denver to set up operations and spearhead the company’s US growth. Its initial focus on customer acquisition will be marketplace sellers across its entire stable of industry verticals including tools and hardware, health and beauty, giftware and motor parts – to name a few.

“We want to deliver the same service offering in the US that we offer here in Australia. That is people on the ground, accessible in local time-zones, who are experts in servicing our customers. Neto is much more than a software company. We’re the service that wraps around our software, and this truly sets us apart.

“Human capital takes time to build and I will be personally involved in the hiring process of every candidate. We’re simply not willing to compromise on the talent of our team as its essential we build a high level of capacity and deep levels of expertise in a relatively short time frame,” said Murtagh.

Neto is committed to delivering the best product and experience for customers and will remain very responsive to the market through its agile and nimble team of developers based in Brisbane, Australia. Its entire platform was also recently migrated to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ensure a highly scalable and secure solution is available to customers anywhere in the world.

“The USA is step one in our international growth strategy and will complement our focus on Australian customers and growing business in this market,” said Murtagh. “That said, the rise of the global marketplace saw it cross the trillion-dollar mark in 2016[i] and Australia represents roughly one percent of that global retail trade. The international opportunity ahead for us is incredible.”

In 2017 Neto placed in the top 10 of the Australian Financial Review’s Most Innovative Companies, was listed in The Australian Financial Review’s Fast 100, and Murtagh was named Brisbane’s Trailblazer of the Year and placed 8 in the Top 40 under 40 entrepreneurs.

“Neto has always punched above its weight, right back from when we started in a suburban warehouse nine years ago”, said Murtagh. “It’s been a fast and adventurous ride and right now we’re standing on the precipice of a major milestone in terms of our growth and international expansion. We’re super excited about what the future holds and will ensure we always deliver the best product and experience possible for our customers.”