Singaporean Firm Invests US$10m in New Zealand Cricket Tech Company

16th June 2015, By Gerard Hutching, Stuff 

Wellington-based CricHQ has scored funding worth $14.3 million (US$10m)  from a Singapore private equity firm to expand into a global operation.

Founder and CEO Simon Baker and director and former Black Cap Stephen Fleming announced at a press conference in Singapore that Tembusu Partners would invest in the cricket technology company.

Tembusu Partners manages funds worth more than $300m and CricHQ will be the second investment by Tembusu Growth Fund III – which has a target size of S$150 million.

Baker said the company, which was launched five years ago, was in expansion mode and was not yet making a profit. He expected that phase to continue for another 12-18 months.

The funding would allow the privately-owned company to take on double the staff in India over the next 18 months, from 40 to 80 personnel. They would work on development, sales and marketing in the world’s largest cricketing nation.

In Wellington CricHQ employs 15 people but there are no plans to add to that number.

Baker said there was no other company which covered the gamut of what CricHQ did.

“It’s hard to find a comparative competitor. There are other companies which do different aspects of what we do – for example we do a lot of what Cricinfo does, but our company does administration of national bodies which Cricinfo does not,” Baker said.

So far CricHQ managed the administration of two test countries – New Zealand and Sri Lanka – and was negotiating with others. It has 41 of 106 national governing bodies using its services from club level upwards.

Although it had not yet partnered with English test cricket administration, it was being used by 10 per cent of other English cricketing bodies.

To read the full story, please click here.