Bahraib-based Khaleeji Commercial Bank (KHCB) announced yesterday its equity stake in Locata Corporation Pty. Ltd., domiciled in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. Locata was founded in 1997 to develop and commercialize its invention of a revolutionary positioning technology that is now an affordable, complete, robust and scalable solution in the field of precise geo-positioning systems.
This is a landmark investment for KHCB making it one of the first Middle East banks to invest in an Australian high-technology company. Khaleeji Commercial Bank’s financial backing will enable Locata to roll out its unique positioning technology on a global scale.
“Locata’s unique value and enormous global potential is well-aligned with KHCB’s ambitious plans to provide innovative, high quality investment opportunities for our clients”, said Ebrahim H. Ebrahim, CEO and Board Member of Khaleeji Commercial Bank. “Since being established in 2004 we have focused on offering value and diversity to our investors – and this focus has underpinned our sustained profitability and strong growth. Our experienced investment banking team, led by our Assistant General Manager Dimitry Blasi, is helping us to forge new directions for the Bank. This investment in an exceptional Australian high-tech company is a clear sign of our growth into new and diversified opportunities.”
“GPS is “badly broken” for a large number of modern applications because the original designers never imagined it being put to industrial, urban or commercial use,” says Nunzio Gambale, Locata’s CEO and co-founder. “Locata has fixed that by inventing the first and only devices that create what can be thought of as a “local GPS”. This enables users to set up “their own GPS network” which will perform exactly as they want. Locata networks are an absolutely amazing technical feat, and the world is beating a path to our door to adopt them. This exciting mutually-beneficial partnership with Khaleeji Commercial Bank provides us with the financial backing to fire up our global expansion.”
Locata’s huge patent portfolio is a testament to the incredible amount of innovation produced by David Small (Locata co-founder, inventor) and the Locata engineering team. Locata has already secured partnerships for LocataTech integration with the world’s biggest GPS companies, Leica Geosystems (Switzerland) and Trimble Navigation (USA). “We know Locata is an important new enabling technology for a huge range of applications”, says Gambale. “I believe Locata is now set to become one of the greatest hi-tech companies to ever emerge from Australia.” And KHCB is helping to make this dream a reality.