RtTech Raises $750K; NBIF Leads

By Peter Moriera – Entrevestor | Link to original article

Six months into its existence, RtTech Software of Riverview, N.B., has raised $750,000 in equity financing and is just about breaking even.

The company – whose software helps companies become more efficient with energy and their machinery – hopes that a round of seed financing will see it through to profitability, and it will not be distracted by fundraising again.

“We are a startup but we have a great pipeline and we have about 40 clients,” said RtTech CEO Pablo Asiron in an interview. “After only six months, we are almost breaking even.”

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation announced Wednesday it had invested $500,000 in the company, a large contribution for NBIF, whose early stage investments typically range from $100,000 to $250,000. (In its last fiscal year, NBIF’s largest payout was $250,000, a follow-on funding of Inversa Systems.)

RtTech also raised about $250,000 from members of ADM Systems Engineering (the Saint John firm from which it was spun out in November 2011) and from one unnamed external investor.

Asiron explained that ADM Engineering had developed two proprietary products over eight years that were solving pain for large companies, such as BHP Billiton, Barrick Gold, Rio Tinto, Flakeboard and Irving.  However, generating a sales team and developing the products was proving difficult within an engineering consultancy, so the ADM principals decided to spin off the unit and place Asiron in charge.

The company’s most renowned product is its Real-time Energy Management Information System, or RtEMIS, which can pinpoint when and where part of a system is using excess energy, as the CBC reported. It can tell whether a process is using more energy than needed or whether components aren’t powering off when idle.

The company’s second product is its Real-time Downtime, Uptime and Event Tracking System, or RtDUET, which allows companies to examine specific processes to find the cause of downtime and poor utilization issues.

“What’s great about RtTech is that the technology was developed to meet an industry need, and the team has the industry contacts to scale the business,” said NBIF CEO Calvin Milbury in a statement. “Our investment will help the company beef up its sales and marketing activities.”

Having spun off with just two employees, RtTech now employs six New Brunswickers and a Texan and has a contractor in Australia. It is now in the process of hiring a developer in its head office and a sales person in Australia. The company is also working on building up its following on twitter at @RttechSoft.

Asiron said the company is fine-tuning RtEMIS and RtDUET to remain ahead of its competitors, and is at the conception stage of a third product, though he declined to reveal details.

“It will start with the letters `Rt’ – that’s all I can tell you about it now,” he said with a laugh.