Nextbitt partnership with Explorer Investments

Nextbitt wants to be an international benchmark. One of the founders, Miguel Salgueiro, says as much. He assumes that the merger with the Explorer Investments fund will accelerate this goal.

How is Nextbitt's business structured?

Nextbitt is a 100% Portuguese technology company that offers an innovative solution for the management and optimization of physical assets, buildings and services that are essential to the business of all organizations. Its client portfolio includes leading players in sectors as diverse as banking, utilities, transportation, health, industry and arenas.

What type of assets does the company manage?

Nextbitt's technology is unique, focused on Asset & Facility Management, IoT, Field Service & Sustainability. Today, in parallel with the adoption of NextBITT technology by our clients, our differentiating offer in a service logic features two other major business areas: the inventory and registration of all physical assets and the building sensor service. This information is now centralized on a single platform, which at the same time integrates and monitors all types of equipment requests or alarms. Nextbitt has become a benchmark.

The company has just signed a five million euro contract with a fund managed by Explorer Investments. What arguments justify this contract?

The main objective is to turn the technology company into an international benchmark, something that this merger with the Explorer Investments fund will accelerate. Along with internationalization, the company's growth and innovation will also evolve. We're also going to hire 60 people over the next 12 months. This partnership makes Nextbitt more robust, allowing for a greater focus on accelerated growth in different geographies. The agreement reached is aimed at a clear commitment to technology for sustainability.

In this acceleration of growth, which countries can Nextbitt bet on?

In the first five years, our goal is to be present in four or five geographies in the European community. Spain will clearly be one of them, but we are looking at other geographies. This strategy is based, in part, on the fact that it has become compulsory for companies in the member states to present data on sustainability, namely in terms of their environmental management system and their energy management system.

In terms of management, will you remain autonomous or will Explorer Investments take over?

The operation between Nextbitt and Explorer Investments will not take away the autonomy in the management of the business from the founding partners of the technology company - myself, Pedro Morais and André Calixto - who will retain the same functions and the majority of the capital.

How much is the technology company's asset portfolio currently valued at?

Today, what we can share is that NextBITT's technology supports its clients in the management of more than 1 billion physical assets. Although we are transversal to any area and sector, the main markets in which we operate are banking and specialized retail, the transport sector, industry, health and arenas. The platform is one for all sectors, and we have already worked with Leroy Merlin, CUF, Altice, Sonae MC, Vodafone, Worten, among others.

Is external asset management a cost that companies are willing to pay, or is it an item that, in times of crisis, they end up foregoing?

For several years now, the disappearance, theft and damage of physical assets has been one of the main business expenses in organizations. In this sense, by implementing a platform that allows us to manage and control these physical assets in real time, the costs allocated to these expenses will be directed towards needs that are more relevant to the development of the business. On the other hand, the pandemic has abruptly accelerated the focus on digitalization of national companies, forcing them to become more digital, otherwise they run the risk of being overtaken by their competitors. Thus, from what we have seen of the market, this is an increasing concern for national companies and transversal in the digitalization of the different industries, to the extent that Portuguese companies today already see the management of physical assets as an important "part" of the value chain of their daily activity.

Adopting the best sustainability practices is already part of companies' daily lives. How does Nextbitt's activity help to comply with the best environmental practices?

Sustainability, the new digital of organizations, has been creating a strong dynamic, an increasingly environmental culture, a whole new strategy in different industries, based on ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance. In this sense, by including a platform that manages and optimizes its physical assets, an organization can keep a permanent record of all its assets, as well as managing the useful life cycle of each physical asset. However, with the NextBITT Platform, in addition to managing and optimizing physical assets, an organization can bring together the Environmental Management System and Energy Management System modules, which simplifies environmental compliance and sustainability reporting in a Top-Down view, from departments to infrastructures to physical assets, in a single application. This solution guarantees the management of the carbon footprint calculation, based on all the physical asset management information: energy quality metrics, water, gas, fossil fuels and tracking of hazardous waste produced, as well as the indoor environment of buildings.In addition, it also allows organizations to see consumption in real time, in a simple and low-cost way, which was not possible in the past. 

Has Nextbitt felt the impact of the pandemic, given that some companies have adopted teleworking in lockdown?

As far as Nextbitt is concerned, we more than doubled the company's growth. These have been two years of great consolidation in our activity. There has been a clear acceleration in companies digitizing their assets. It seems to us that in certain areas of organizations, teleworking is here to stay.

How have the first few months of 2022 progressed in terms of financial indicators?

In the first five months of 2022, compared to the same period in 2021, growth remained in double digits, and the level of recurrence grew by the same amount. Nextbitt's goal for 2022 is to grow its turnover by around 30%, and we estimate that the number of clients in Portugal will grow by ten to 15 new clients. It should be noted that, given that we operate particularly in the enterprise market, the growth of projects with this type of client should not be seen in isolation, because for us it means new billing points, and here, in the first five months of 2022 alone, we have already grown by 35%. Now, there are still global factors of uncertainty, such as Covid and the war, which we are not taking into account for this growth at the moment.

In terms of human resources, the policy is one of talent retention...

We plan to increase our team in different areas. Software Tester, Net Fullstack Developer, BI, Environmental Engineering, are some of the profiles that the company is still looking to recruit. However, Nextbitt has a huge focus on retaining the best talent in a market of full employment, hence the commitment to a people-oriented culture, promoting proximity, and fostering knowledge and the development of their unique skills.

Source: Forbes Portugal

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