Kewill Systems raises funds for ecommerce acquisitions

Software VAR Kewill Systems has raised £39m to bring its business portal and ecommerce software to Europe while continuing to look for acquisition targets in the US ecommerce market.

Software VAR Kewill Systems has raised £39m to bring its business portal and ecommerce software to Europe while continuing to look for acquisition targets in the US ecommerce market.

The £39m, raised from a share placing, followed three US buyouts which have helped Kewill make the transition from being an enterprise-focused software logistics company into an internet-centric business.

Kewill said interim sales for the six months ended 30 September had risen by 30 per cent to £35.7m. The company also signed a deal with Federal Express at the end of September to build a business portal for FedEx customers to calculate routes and track parcels.

Geoffrey Finlay, chief executive of Kewill, said the portal has built up a 30,000-strong customer base and FedEx plans to have at least two million within two years.

"Acquisitions are the fast track to accelerating growth and our acquisitions have exploited the skill set we already had," Finlay said.

Richard Holway, managing director at analyst Richard Holway Ltd, said: "Kewill has been making the right moves in exactly the right areas. The company is well managed and acquisitions have been sensible."

Kewill's last acquisition was in July 1999, when its £11.6m takeover of shipping software specialist Aristo gave it 70 per cent of the US electronic shipping market.

Kewill said it will also use the money from the share placing to put together a European sales and marketing team.