Erik Damgaard’s new software-as-a-service ERP system in the cloud Uniconta was off to an excellent start when they launched in May 2016, and the company behind the software – New Online Systems – managed to recruit more than one hundred new resellers in less than six months.

Earlier this week New Online Systems announced that they had secured a capital injection of DKK 60 million (€8M) to help accelerate domestic and international growth.

The history

Erik Damgaard became famous when he sold his company Navision to Microsoft in 2002 for DKK 11.2 billion (€1.5B). He developed his first bookkeeping system for CP/M Danmax in 1984 and in 1986 he released Concorde, which was a multi-user MS-DOS based software package that soon became the market leader in Denmark. In 1991 Damgaard Data, the company Erik had founded with his brother Preben, released Concorde XAL, which became the foundation for their international activities and in early 1998 came Axapta, which was sponsored by IBM that had a 50% stake in Damgaard International (a subsidiary of Damgaard Data) from 1994 to 1998. Damgaard Data divorced from IBM in November 1998 and did a very successful IPO in October 1999. The company merged with Navision Software in December 2000 and became NavisonDamgaard. In spring 2001 the company abbreviated their name to just Navision, and in July 2002 Microsoft acquired the company. After the acquisition, Erik worked for a short while for Microsoft in their Seattle HQ.

There is a hole in the market

According to Erik Damgaard, there is a gap in the market just now, where SMB companies all over the world are looking to replace their customized on-premise systems only to realize that the cloud-based solutions are rigid and difficult to customize.

“Standard out-of-the-box systems are ideal for small companies with just one or very few users,” says Erik Damgaard, “but there are millions of SMB businesses that need customizations and extensions, and I have designed Uniconta to satisfy such needs.”

Since he started developing ERP software in the mid-1980’s Erik Damgaard learned the power of the reseller channel and his strategy is to release this potential with Uniconta, too.

Per Pedersen

“Whenever Erik added an option to change or add something to his products they were immediately embraced by our customers and our value added resellers,” adds Per Pedersen, responsible for channel development and minority shareholder in New Online Systems. “The fact that we have now recruited more than 100 value added resellers without making a single outbound call verifies that the need is there.”

The funds will be used for consolidating the market share in Denmark and then for expansion into foreign markets of which Norway is very high on the list. Germany and The Netherlands are also being seriously considered.

After the capital injection, New Online Systems is owned by Erik Damgaard, Per Pedersen, Jørn Rejndrup and MP Pension.

You may want to check out my book “5,460 Miles from Silicon Valley: The In-depth Case Study of What Became Microsoft’s First Billion Dollar Acquisition Outside the USA.”

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