Winner: SmartCompany 2007 Award for Hottest Start-up sponsored by Optus
SmartCompany50 rank: 43
Revenue: $20.9 million
Growth: 27%
Founder: David Noon, 36
Based: Queensland
Employees: 108
Industry: Mining
Website: www.groundprobe.com
All entrepreneurs dream of coming up with life saving technology. GroundProbe has done it, with its technology providing early detection and warning of collapsing walls.
This has improved the safety in open pit mines and improved productivity through real time risk management of slope movements. It has also allowed more aggressive designs that turned marginal mines into competitive mines.
The global mining industry is also suffering from a skills shortage in professions that are critical for design and risk management in mine operations. “This presents us with a great opportunity to provide products and services to enable mines to manage risk through remoter access,” founder David Noon says (pictured with Lyle Bruce).
The company had an interesting start. In the late 1990s, a PHD student was working on a project at the University of Queensland when his superviser realised they could measure wall movement. In 2001 GroundProbe was formed and the IP transferred.
By 2003 it was looking impossible that the company could secure finding, find a chief executive and secure a deal when all three key events happened in two weeks.
Revenue increased to $21 million from $19 million last year with most revenue coming from export, with the main markets being the US, Africa and Chile and the most exciting new markets are Brazil, China, India, West Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia.
Plans include offering new products being designed through inhouse research activities and acquiring or licensing new products.
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