Mi9 Retail

Mi9 Retail is an enterprise software provider for large retailers, wholesalers, and brands. Based in Miami, Florida,^[1] Mi9 Retail also has offices in North America, Europe, and Asia.^[2] The company's namesake is inspired by MI6, the British intelligence agency, and its nine initial team members who formed it in 2001.

Company history

1980s–1990s: Leading Up to Mi9 Retail

UK natives Mike Burge^[3] and Roger Johnson^[4] were originally co-workers at MGB Computer Services, a UK-based software house founded by Mr. Burge, that designed commercial packaged software for the International Computers Limited marketplace. The company was later sold to Radius Plc in 1989. A partnership with Ernst & Young then led to the introduction of the team and its Unix-based OpenRSA (Open Retail Systems Architecture) product to clients in the United States and Canada, including Eaton's, Canadian Tire, Kmart and CompUSA. During this time, 1989-1999, the company was based out of Milton Keynes in the UK, with an office in Toronto, ON.

2001–2014: Building the Mi9 Retail Brand

After a ten-year stint at the then publicly traded Radius Plc, the company went private, with Mr. Burge leading a buyout of the retail practice to form Transatlantic Software.^[5] Transatlantic Software was then acquired by ADS Group in 2001 and subsequently merged with STR Inc., a Cleveland-based POS software company whose flagship product was Trade Wind. Mr. Burge then acquired the rights to the OpenRSA product, and together with the core technical team of Transatlantic, formed MI9 Business Intelligence Inc., which commenced trading in 2002. The company's original product was a business intelligence module Mi9 Retail – Wikipedia Entry developed on .NET Framework in the back room of a schoolhouse in northern Toronto.

Later in 2009, the newly named Mi9 Retail acquired US-based Software Development, Inc., a Pleasanton, CA company specializing in store and POS systems.^[6] With the acquisition finalized, Mi9 Retail invested in modernizing the store systems product and integrating it with the core merchandising system to round out its "end-to-end" offering.

2014–2015: Respida Capital management

In 2014, Respida Capital acquired Mi9 Retail and integrated the respective management teams.^[7] Respida's first acquisition to further augment Mi9 Retail's capabilities was Gyes, a data aggregation platform formerly part of Fort Lauderdale-based Infinithread.^[8] 2014 also saw the company named as one of the "Most Commonly Selected ERP Software Vendors" by the Parker Avery Group in its article, "The State of Retail ERP 2014".^[9]

As of Q1 2015, the company reported an 80% increase to its team compared to the year prior with plans to continue expanding.^[10] Since Respida's acquisition of Mi9 Retail, the company and its software have been selected by the likes of Talbots, Century 21, Everything But Water, The Original Factory Shop and 24 Hour Fitness for its expanding retail operations.

2015–present: New Acquisitions, Growth Investment from General Atlantic and HGGC

On November 3, 2015, Mi9 Retail acquired retail provider Raymark.^[11] That same week, the company announced funding from Summit Partners to support its rapid expansion.^[12]

In 2016, Mi9 Retail acquired Applications Systems Corporation (ASC) and formed a new group devoted exclusively to jewelry retailers.^[13] The same year, the company also acquired Upshot Commerce.^[14]

In 2017, Mi9 Retail announced that General Atlantic, a growth equity firm had added capital to the Mi9 Retail balance sheet to support new growth opportunities.^[15]

In early 2018, Mi9 Retail acquired demand management provider JustEnough Software.^[16] Later that year, the company announced the acquisition of MyWebGrocer, a software and digital media company that caters to the grocery and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industries, along with an investment from HGGC, a middle market private equity firm.^[17][18]

References

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