Our Story

After over 20 years of building and scaling retail brands like Mimco, sass & bide, and MJ Bale, David realized there must be a better way for retailers to leverage technology for improved reporting and analytics. His goal was to drive profitability and foster collaboration among retailers through effective benchmarking.

David reconnected with his old friend Barry (he's not that old!), an experienced tech investor who is a Co-founder of Square Peg and helped guide Vend to its exit.



Recognizing the opportunity, Barry brought in Ben, who led the Vend engineering team, implementing hundreds of product improvements weekly for over 20,000 retailers worldwide, all without security breaches.

In the past few months, our team has harnessed the power of AI with remarkable results. Our retail partners are already experiencing significant benefits in terms of better insights, increased efficiencies, and cost savings—and we're just getting started!

Meet the Team

Kolatr is built on decades of experience in retail, tech, and data science.

David brings over 25 years of investing, advising and running Australian fashion and retail businesses such as MIMCO, sass & bide, and MJ Bale.

He is a board member of Decjuba, Thread Together and chairs the board of M.J. Bale. Previous board member of Adairs and chairman of the Melbourne Fashion Festival. Also a guest lecturer in the Melbourne University MBA Program.
Visit Barry Brott's LinkedIn profile
Barry is an Investment Manager at Melbourne-based family office, Jagen Pty Ltd. He is a co-founder of Square Peg, a venture capital firm and has been a director of high-growth tech companies including Gyrocam, Vend and Joyous.

Barry has held senior corporate development positions at MYOB and Village Roadshow Limited, alongside advisory positions at KPMG and Merrill Lynch.
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Ben brings over 20 years of experience of engineering leadership across industries including finance, banking, and retail SaaS.

At Vend he led the team of 80 engineers team supporting over 20,000 retailers globally, shipping dozens of changes a day with zero data breaches or security issues. He is also an Operating Partner with Movac, a New Zealand venture capital firm.
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Paul is an experienced retail CEO and Advisor, having led some of Australia's best known fashion apparel brands including CAMILLA, Scanlan Theodore, The Upside and Bendon Group.
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Mal brings over 20 years of retail, eCommerce, SaaS, and music engineering experience. He was a Principal Engineer at Vend before becoming inMusic's Director of Engineering for Webservices.
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A jack of all trades, Bickio brings experience in automation and full stack development from his time at InMusic, and is thrilled to leverage his interest in AI.
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Ryan brings experience leading development at Generative AI startups to increase work productivity, after building Cloud and Data solutions at Cognizant-Servian with clients such as VicGov and Queensland University.
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Felix loves all things data, ML, and AI. He brings experience building reconciliation software for Australian energy retailers and EV charger networks.
Visit Felix McCuaig's LinkedIn profile