LoopUp Group expands into Australia

Remote meetings provider LoopUp Group announced its commercial expansion into the $275m Australian market on Wednesday, with the formal opening of its Sydney office.

The AIM-traded from said it had operated one of its four global data centres in Australia since 2016 to serve its UK and US customers who had local operations in the region.

That would now be augmented with a commercial office presence, where new business acquisition 'pods' would target enterprises headquartered in Australia.

“Australia has some very attractive attributes as a new market for LoopUp,” said co-CEO Steve Flavell.

“There are several geographically-dispersed urban centres which drive conferencing activity, average selling prices are materially higher than the global average, and Sydney represents a wonderful focal point to develop into the Group's regional headquarters over time.”

During a market research and testing phase over recent months, LoopUp said it had already contracted six customer wins, including a leading Australian private equity firm and a financial advisory and investment management group with more than $100bn under management.

The group said it had relocated five established members of its UK and US pods to Sydney.

Those employees would form the basis of two initial Australian pods, which would be augmented with local graduate hires.

During the first half of the current financial year, the two pods would focus on building their pipelines to normalised pod levels.

The group said it believed the Australian market was “highly conducive” to the LoopUp product proposition, and it expected growth and pod performance to fall in line with normal UK and US pod levels thereafter.