Dublin-based Ocrex gets €3m funding

Ocrex founder Brendan Woods

John Mulligan

Funds managed by ACT Venture Capital, as well as clients of Dublin-based Signature Capital, have stumped up the bulk of €3m in funding that has been secured by Irish tech firm Ocrex.

The company, whose applications enable data to be automatically captured from documents such as invoices and receipts, indicated earlier this year that it was hunting for capital to grow the business. Investors also include tech entrepreneur Cathal McGloin, who is the non-executive chairman of Ocrex.

He was the chief executive of Waterford tech firm FeedHenry, which was spun out of Waterford Institute of technology.

The company had developed a system that allowed customers to build apps for mobile operating systems. It was sold to Red Hat for €63m in 2014.

Mr McGloin was the vice president of the Red Hat mobile unit until the end of last year. He's now chief executive and founder of ServisBOT, a company that provides virtual assistance via popular messaging channels.

Ocrex, which trades as AutoEntry, was founded in 2009 by software developer Brendan Woods. He quit his previous job in 2011 to further develop the company. It's now part of the Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Up base.

AutoEntry's customer base includes more than 2,000 accountancy firms across Ireland and the UK.

Mr Woods has previously indicated that once it raised additional funds, the company intended to hire as many as 30 additional staff.

In September, it opened its Australian headquarters, in Melbourne. The company already has more than 70 Australian accountancy firms using its system.