Substantial shareholders on its register include a pair of fund managers, Regal Funds Management and Perennial Value Management, and Mccusker Holdings. The company has also caught the attention of Ellerston Capital, which it holds in its micro cap fund as a core position, getting a shout-out in its December fund update.
Part of the reason Ellerston likes Qoria is its cost out strategy, which the fund manager says has put the child safety business on the path to profitability and given investors surety around funding. Among the company’s short to medium term milestones is a 20 per cent EBITDA margin.
California based K1 Investment Management is best known to Australian investors as the acquirer of Elmo Software, taking the company private in 2022 with the same team of advisers. It also picked up Melbourne-founded tech company Cyara in a $US350 million deal and invested in field service management software simPRO in 2021. The firm has about $US13 billion in funds under management and a hankering for enterprise software names.
Perth-based Qoria is chaired by Peter Pawlowitsch, who also sits on the board of call recording software group Dubber. The company’s cloud-based platform is used by schools and parents to keep children safe online. It landed on the ASX in 2016 and has since acquired ed-tech business Linewize and cyber safety education provider ySafe.
Qoria opened its North American division in 2019. Comparisons are drawn to much larger ASX-listed family-tracking app Life360, whose shares surged more than 38 per cent this month as it unveiled a new advertising strategy.
