blur Group (LON:BLUR) is looking to Asia after receiving enthusiastic support in the City for its fund-raising announced on Friday.
Both existing and new institutional investors pitched in to buy shares at 75p a pop, as the leader in services-commerce raised around US$20mln (£13.1mln), net, through the issue of 15.9mln shares .
The company plans to invest the money in accelerating growth in Asia Pacific markets and it will also be focusing on medium to large customers to attract larger and more profitable projects.
“Our goal in 2014 is to firmly establish blur Group in the enterprise space, delivering consistently on higher volume projects," declared founder and chief executive officer, Philip Letts.
"Developments in our technology platform, embedded in our blur 4.0 launch, will deliver true enterprise levels of scalability and automation. We believe this move will provide organisations with the confidence to use what we call ‘services-commerce’ to source every aspect of the long tail of their services procurement," Letts added.
The group will also continue to expand its partnership programme to enhance its global network and accelerate development of the Global Services Exchange with the launch of blur 5.0 in 2015.
The announcement came after the crowd-sourcing pioneer said revenue increased by 70.1% to US$4.78mln from US$$2.81mln in 2012, while the total project booking intake soared to US$22.2mln from US2.4mln.
In all, 2,086 briefs were submitted to the exchange in 2013, a 169% increase on 2012.
In common with most growth companies seeking to extend a lead over competitors, blur saw its full-year losses (LBITDA) widen, to US$6.37mln from LBITDA of US$1.81mln in 2012, although gross profit increase by 58.9% to US$1.16mln from US$0.73mln in 2012.
The group ended the year with a cash balance of US$9.56mln, up from US$4.45mln a year earlier, after an oversubscribed placing of shares at 150p a share that raised US$11.5mln.
“While we made good progress in 2013, I strongly believe we have only scratched the surface. We are confident that we are at the cusp of major, profitable growth as the benefits of s-commerce are experienced and understood by our markets. I look forward with confidence into 2014 and beyond,” Letts said.
The company said a recruitment process is underway for a chief financial officer, while it is also looking to appoint a non-executive chairman.