ERMS Corporation, the Oakville-based creators of an emergency mass communication tool, has secured $3.5 million. The new capital announcement represents the company’s second time receiving a cheque.
The round is being led by BEST Funds, a Toronto-based boutique venture firm that invests in a broad range of sectors, including cleantech, financial services, software, cloud computing, and SaaS business models.
ERMS is an enterprise-class emergency notification system, and it calls itself “more than simple outbound messaging.” The company’s solutions offer a reliable, flexible system with the ability to send notifications via email, SMS, phone (landline, mobile, or satellite), fax, and more.
“The investment from BEST Funds further strengthens an already strong relationship between our companies. And, in turn, it allows us to build stronger relationships with our customers,” stated Sylvain Rollin, President and CEO of ERMS. “In fact, 80-90 percent of our product development roadmap comes from customer input—they are our real-world experts. This funding will help drive solution enhancements that respond to their unique needs.”
Its main product is called “Advantage,” a SaaS-based secure and comprehensive enterprise-class mass emergency notification system. It is made up of seven tightly-integrated modules (Messenger, Roll Call, Crisis Manager, Mapper, HotLine, myAdvantage, and Library). It’s purpose is to empower business continuity, crisis communication, and disaster recovery professionals to quickly and reliably prepare, execute, and report.
According to EMRS, Advantage provides “the industry’s highest level of adaptability, most inclusive API, reliability and advanced functionality.”
The company plans to use the investment to increase brand awareness and share in North American and Global markets. In addition, the investment boost ERMS’s infrastructure growth and “accelerated product development”.
As indicated, the venture capital firm BEST has already once invested in ERMS, and apparently it was happy enough with the company’s growth that it chose to further fund it. “Having had the unique opportunity to work closely with ERMS over the last few years, this commitment is a reflection of the confidence BEST has in ERMS’ progress to date,” said BEST’s John Richardson. “It is our belief that this added capital will enable ERMS to meet the ever-increasing demand for emergency response and help position them for growth in the mass notification industry. ERMS exemplifies the characteristics of a leading Canadian technology company.”
