Oris4, the Halifax software company that has developed a cloud-based document organization system, has hired Salesforce.com veteran Wade McCallum to lead the company’s sales team.
McCallum had been Salesforce’s vice-president of enterprise sales, having held a senior sales position with Fredericton-based Radian6, which San Francisco-based Salesforce bought for $326 million in 2011.
His title at Oris4 will be vice-president of sales.
“It’s a big move for us,” said co-founder Andrew Doyle in an interview. He said he and partner Peter Hickey “can’t focus on everything 100 per cent of the time so we’re adding specialists who can handle important jobs.”
Oris4, which began life as 2nd Act Innovations two years ago, has developed the Oris4 Enterprise Content Manager, which allows organizations to quickly and easily organize, store and find their documents.
The company has been adding senior executives to strengthen its corporate structure. Earlier this year, it hired two Silicon Valley veterans to fill senior management roles: Reza Kazemipour as chief executive and Guillaume Oget as chief technology officer. They formed a four-member executive team with Doyle and Hickey.
Earlier this month, the company announced its new chief financial officer would be Keith Abriel, who has worked with such other high-growth companies as BlueLight Analytics Inc., CarbonCure Technologies Inc. and DHX Media Ltd.
The important point about the McCallum hire is that Oris4 is bulking up its sales team. New Brunswick investor Gerry Pond says one staffing area that Atlantic Canadian startups have to improve is their sales teams, and Oris4 is doing just that.
Doyle said McCallum has the experience to know how to make sales to multinational companies and is bringing the structure and discipline to the Oris4 sales team to foster those sorts of deals.
“I’m an entrepreneur at heart,” said McCallum in a news release. “Oris4 gives me the opportunity to build on the great strides the team has made to date. We will build another international software success story from right here in Halifax.”
The other important point about developing the sales team is that Oris4 is hoping to close a funding round of about $5 million to $7 million this year, and needs to show venture capital funds that it is generating revenue. If it can book some large customers, the company will have greater success in attracting investors. What’s more, sales will bring money into the company, allowing more time to find just the right investors at just the right valuation.
Oris4 last year secured $1.1 million in funding, including equity investments of $250,000 each from Innovacorp, Nova Scotia’s innovation agency, and GrowthWorks Atlantic, the venture capital fund. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency lent the company $150,000, and a group of angel investors rounded out the funding. Precipice Capital, a Dartmouth investment boutique led by Chris Dobbin, advised 2nd Act on the financing.
Innovacorp and Growthworks added additional funding earlier this year.