Charlie Shahin to invest in Alpen Enterprises

Adelaide business software firm Alpen Enterprises has brought on Charlie (Khalil) Shahin as a major shareholder, with the funding raised to help drive the company’s next phase of growth.

Charlie (Khalil) Shahin and Glen Matulcih. Glen is the founder of Alpen Enterprises. Supplied

Adelaide business software firm Alpen Enterprises has brought on Charlie (Khalil) Shahin as a major shareholder, with the funding raised to help drive the company’s next phase of growth.

Alpen, headed up by Glen Matulich, has developed point of sale and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for business in the $5m-$150m revenue range, with its products designed to give users an end-to-end solution for managing issues such as inventory, supply chain, customer relationships and performance metrics.

Alpen raised a seed round of capital back in 2019, bringing on a group of investors via Chapman Capital Partners.

In the most recent round of fundraising Mr Shahin, part of the billionaire Shahin family which previously owned OTR, put his hand up to take all of the equity on offer.

While the investment figure is not being disclosed, he will take a 20 per cent stake in Alpen for an amount in the seven figures.

Mr Matulich said Alpen differentiated itself from larger players in the space by being able to implement its software more quickly, while offering strong customer service.

“We are able to implement an ERP a lot faster than what the larger guys can,’’ Mr Matulich said.

“We’ve found a sweet spot in that market.’’

The company has been split into a point of sale division aligned with a reseller network, while extra focus would now go into the ERP side.

Mr Matulich said this allowed the company to focus more on software development.

“It’s been really impressive what a small team has been able to do with a little - from data centre to desktop we own the whole stack,’’ he said.

This had the benefit for customers of having a single point of contact for their software solution, rather than having to deal with the difficulty of a system with a suite of products tacked together.

Mr Matulich said Alpen had been product-focused rather than trying to raise capital too early, and had waited until the right time to tap the market.

Mr Shahin, who has deep retail and overall business knowledge, would be able to offer that expertise to the company as well as the investment, Mr Matulich said.

Mr Matulich said Alpen had enjoyed success with customers in the building supplies sector, where the fundamentals were strong, and had customers such as SA Mushrooms and other food producers on its books.

Mr Shahin said he was delighted to be a major shareholder.

“The business is filling a much needed gap in the market delivering ERP and point of sale solutions for the SME space,’’ he said

“I believe Alpen can execute on their growth strategy building a business to scale and delivering shareholder value.’’

Mr Shahin in February took an 11.4 per cent stake in medicinal cannabis and telehealth firm Vitura, for $5.2m.

That investment was to be used in the main to fund Vitura’s $4m purchase of Candor Medical.

Vitura owns Burleigh Heads Cannabis, which in turn owns Canview, which prescribes and supplies medicinal cannabis.

The company’s goal is to develop Canview into a healthcare platform that will provide a best-in-class user experience in the medicinal cannabis field.

Mr Shahin was managing director of the Shahin family’s Peregrine Corporation for more than two decades until March last year, and has held a number of non-executive director roles.

He is also an industry professor at University of South Australia and Western Sydney University.

The Shahin family sold their OTR petrol and convenience store business to Viva Energy for $1.15bn in 2023.

Originally published as Charlie Shahin to invest in Alpen Enterprises