Investing for the future

Dublin, Ireland - 16th February, 2021: Global software development and consultancy firm NearForm has announced a strategic investment from Columbia Capital to support market penetration and scale operations across North America and Europe.

NearForm develops enterprise software to help large corporate and public sector companies scale their platforms for the digital economy. Using open-source software, their digital products deliver secure mobile and web platforms that can scale to meet industry and consumer demands.

Digital transformation remains the number one priority for CIOs in 2021, as companies look to innovate and grow post-pandemic. Yet more than 80% of digital transformations fail. When speed and agility are crucial, traditional consulting firm methods are expensive and slow. NearForm’s open source approach has accelerated cost-effective digital transformations for clients including Walmart, IBM and Condé Nast, and recently they developed the most widely adopted COVID contract tracing app code, COVID Green , now used from New York to New Zealand.

“The unprecedented events of 2020 have shown that both public and private sector companies must react quickly to meet the challenges of today’s world. NearForm was founded on the belief that open source technology has become best practice for delivering cost-effective, scalable and secure digital platforms at speed for the most challenging projects. Our open source software solutions are already used by many of the world’s biggest companies, like Facebook, Netflix and Uber and can help others meet consumers' digital expectations faster than traditional methods,” said Cian Ó Maidín, founder and CEO of NearForm.

On the announcement, Jason Booma, partner at Columbia Capital, said “As digital becomes the default form of interface for both commercial and civic organisations, creating software stacks that emphasise agility can unlock attractive options for even those with the most complex enterprise architectures. NearForm has an expert engineering-led culture that reliably translates to achieving positive and cost-effective customer outcomes. We look forward to working with the company as it scales and expands globally.”

NearForm will use the additional capital to scale operations and accelerate recruitment in sales, marketing, engineering and design across North America and Europe to meet growing market demand from companies seeking digital solutions to keep pace with competitors and meet the changing digital demands of their consumers.

NearForm is a software development and consultancy firm that builds better software faster. Bringing together both design and engineering, NearForm solves complex technology challenges for global enterprises across multiple industry sectors to enrich customer experience and contribute to the development of the open source community.

NearForm recently developed COVID contact tracing apps for Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Gibraltar, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, with more to come. Find out more about NearForm .

Founded in 1989, Columbia Capital is a venture capital investment firm based in Alexandria, Virginia. The firm seeks to invest in communications, media, and technology (CMT) space with a focus on enterprise information technology, internet infrastructure and mobility sectors. Find out more about Columbia Capital .

Eoghan Dillon eoghan@150bond.com 150Bond Europe

Orlaith Farrell orlaith@150bond.com 150Bond North America