MELBOURNE – 21 November, 2014 – Nitro Founder and CEO Sam Chandler was named the national winner in the Emerging category at last night’s finalist awards ceremony for the 2014 EY Australian Entrepreneur of the Year in Melbourne. This follows Chandler’s win in the same category for the Southern Region in July.
A serial entrepreneur, Tasmanian-born Chandler started his first company at 16 when still at high school and his second at 21 while studying at RMIT. Having launched Nitro in Melbourne in 2005, the company has grown under Chandler’s vision and leadership to become a global leader in smart document productivity solutions with over 150 employees across five locations, including its San Francisco headquarters.
Today, Nitro’s award-winning desktop and cloud products are used daily by more than 500,000 customers, including 50$ of the Fortune 500, in almost 200 countries to eliminate paper-based processes like printing, faxing, and scanning, and empower businesses to share, sign, approve, and collaborate on documents in a smarter, faster, and more secure way.
Accepting the award from Australian sporting legend and Tour de France winner Cadel Evans, Chandler said: “2014 has been a pivotal year for Nitro – we’ve added 75 new Nitronauts to our global team, we launched new offices in Dublin and St. Petersburg, and most recently, secured a $15m funding round from US firm Battery Ventures, so this award is definitely another highlight as we close out our most successful year to date. I’m truly honoured and humbled to be recognized among so many other inspiring entrepreneurs, and while I’m the one to accept this award, I do so on behalf of the amazing team we have at Nitro, without whom building this business simply wouldn’t be possible. Chandler added: “I’m also incredibly grateful for the kindness and generosity of the Australian business community in supporting Nitro’s vision from its very humble beginnings as a scrappy start-up in Melbourne which is something we will always remember.”
The EY 2014 judges acknowledged Chandler’s vision and leadership driving Nitro to global success: “With Nitro, Sam has taken a big risk by going up against some of the big giants in terms of document sharing and collaboration. But his innovative concept has seen the business grow into a serious challenger. Sam has a relaxed, fun and casual style, but at the same time he is absolutely focused on his business. His mantra to never stop learning has seen him overcome a number of challenges along the way. Early on, he needed to completely reinvent his business model but he was able to turn it around and is now well on the way to building an incredibly successful business.”
About Nitro
Nitro is changing the way the world works with documents – from the desktop to the cloud, making it easy to create, edit, share, sign and collaborate; online or offline. More than 500,000 businesses run Nitro, including more than 50 per cent of the Fortune 500. The PDF software partner of choice for Lenovo, Nitro’s award-winning products, including Nitro Pro and Nitro Cloud, are used by millions of people around the world every day. Australian-founded, Nitro is headquartered in downtown San Francisco with offices in Melbourne, Australia; Dublin, Ireland; Nitra, Slovakia; and St. Petersburg Russia. One of the fastest-growing private companies in the world, Nitro is also a multiple Inc. 500/5000, BRW Fast 100, Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and Software 500 award winner.
More info: www.gonitro.com.
About EY Entrepreneur of the Year
EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ is considered the world’s most prestigious business award and the only truly global program of its kind in encouraging entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and acknowledging the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership, and achievement. Entrepreneur of the Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries.