Maestro makes inroads in US with software for schools
Business Times - Jul
20, 2009
 MAESTRO Planning Solutions Sdn Bhd (Maestro) - formed some six years ago in a spare room in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur - aims to expand its presence in the US with the help of QuickSchools.com, the firm's online school administration software.
The software firm is currently in talks with a private school chain that has a network of schools globally and over 100 in the US.
"The lead came to us through client referral. We are aggressively growing our presence in the US," chief executive officer Aris Samad Yahaya told Business Times.
Currently, more than 15 private schools in the US are using QuickSchools.com, while four private schools in the UK are testing it.
"We have had customers who ditched the market-leading system in the world for ours. Even schools with no school management system exposure signed up," he said.
Maestro plans to use funds from angel investors to help in the sales and marketing portion of the business in the US, said Aris.
In May this year, Maestro signed a deal with DTA Capital Partners for an injection of RM4.5million in venture capital funding.
In the same month, Multimedia Development Corp Sdn Bhd had also approved a RM1.06 million grant for research and development.
The QuickSchools.com software delivered via the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model was launched in New York last November and thus far has received overwhelming response.
The software is aimed at helping small private schools run more effectively, as SaaS provides an option for schools to stop spending money on costly servers, software and maintenance fees.
In return, schools would pay QuickSchools.com a monthly subscription fee to use the software over the web.
When asked why the focus is in the US market and not Malaysia, Aris said this is due to the former's wide market reach.
"There are some 33,000 private schools in the US compared with Malaysia, which only has about 130 schools. The market in this country is too small for us to capture a big number of potential consumers," he said.
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