WA-BASED technology group Palmteq is raising capital to fund an overseas marketing campaign to further boost the international profile of its flagship product, Waiterpad.
Palmteq this week launched its prospectus and is seeking to raise $2.5 million through the offer of 12.5 million shares at 20 cents each. The company also has the ability to accept an additional $2.5 million in oversubscriptions. Waiterpad, a hand-held remote ordering device, has become popular in the hospitality industry with 17 local restaurants, including Oceania and C Restaurant, using the wireless system.
Nationally, more than 60 restaurants use the customised Waiterpad system, making Palmteq the biggest Australian provider of such technology.
There are four Australian stores and, through its relationship with technology developer Uniwell Corporation, Palmteq has access to an international network of 54 distributors.
In the past two years, this distribution network has helped Palmteq increase its sales revenue from $680,000 in the 1998-99 financial year to $2.2 million in 2000-01.
Capital raised through the prospectus will go toward boosting Waiterpad’s profile, growing the distributor network and customising Palmteq products for different markets.
Palmteq managing director Keith Caiacob said a large part of the marketing campaign would involve displaying Waiterpad at trade shows around the world.
“Once we realised we had a world class product, we also realised we had to take it around the world to promote it ... especially in the United States,” Mr Caiacob said. “And of course all of this costs a substantial amount of money.”
The company has begun to make inroads into various overseas markets, in particular in the United Kingdom, where Uniwell recently released the ROM-based version of Waiterpad that was able to interface with other Uniwell technologies.
“We have since had 35 requests for Waiterpad systems,” Mr Caiacob said.
