Transforming business document automation
Nomia, a Johannesburg-based startup founded in 2022, has revolutionised how businesses handle document creation, updates and storage through its innovative API-driven platform. By automatically generating business documents with embedded variables and formatting rules, Nomia transforms static templates into dynamic, compliant documentation systems that save time, minimise errors and enable better workflow control.
Co-founded by Malcolm MacDonald, this modern all-in-one solution serves individuals and organisations of all sizes across any industry. From document drafting and collaboration to content management and secure storage, Nomia connects businesses with streamlined document workflows.
With customers spanning insurance companies managing policy documents to corporations handling evolving contracts, the platform is simple to use yet powerful enough to handle complex compliance needs.
“Our philosophy from day one has been to build reliable, stable systems,” says Malcolm.
A strategic move to cloud infrastructure
As Nomia’s document automation platform grew more sophisticated, handling complex template versioning and API-driven document generation, the demands on their backend systems intensified. They needed cost-effective infrastructure that could scale efficiently without the overhead of self-managed hosting environments.
Nomia adopted xneelo Cloud after participating in the beta program, transitioning from shared hosting to a cloud-first approach.
“As a startup, hosting with our own servers wasn’t an appropriate option. We wanted to keep costs as low as possible while our client base built up”, explains Malcolm.
How it works:
- Containerised architecture: Rust backend and React frontend running in Docker containers
- Database management: PostgreSQL handling document templates and versioning data
- Development flexibility: Separate test and production environments with planned multi-instance scaling
- Volume management: Decoupled storage enabling quick development iterations
- API Integration: Seamless document generation via API calls
Unique innovation in document versioning
Beyond infrastructure benefits, xneelo Cloud enables Nomia’s groundbreaking approach to document management:
Revolutionary versioning system: Instead of versioning entire documents, Nomia versions individual paragraphs, allowing precise tracking of changes over time while remembering connections between paragraphs across multiple templates.
Compliance automation: When legislation changes affect policy documents or contracts, the system suggests consistent updates across all related templates, making compliance management significantly more efficient for insurance companies and corporate policy managers.
“There are a few things that we do that no one else is doing,” explains Malcolm. “For compliance use cases where you’ve got to keep policy documents aligned with legislation changes, the benefits of this tool are compelling.”
Why they chose xneelo Cloud
The Nomia team evaluated major cloud providers and self-hosting options before choosing xneelo Cloud:
Hyperscalers:
- Complex cost calculations with unpredictable billing
- Less control over server environment configuration
- Opaque elements limit complete system control
Self-hosting:
- Too costly for the startup budget constraints
- Maintenance overhead conflicts with the development focus
Xneelo Cloud:
- Cost-effective solution ideal for startups
- Near bare-metal control over the infrastructure environment
- Trusted, well-reputed hosting provider instilling customer confidence
- Quick project provisioning and flexible volume management
- Transparent pricing without vendor lock-in
“Xneelo is very well-reputed in the industry. A lot of customers show comfort on their faces when we say we’re hosted with xneelo.”
Business impact
The migration to xneelo Cloud delivered improvements across development and operations:
- Development agility through easy snapshotting, instance switching, and volume management
- Operational reliability with high uptime and fast network performance
- Scaling flexibility enabling smooth transition from development to production with a planned multi-instance architecture
“The support team understood exactly what my question was and how to get me to a place where it worked.”
Advice for other businesses
Nomia’s successful adoption demonstrates how the right infrastructure partner enables innovation and business growth for startups:
“I’d recommend it as the absolute ideal platform for startups because it gets you to a running virtual machine in very little time, and the ability to manage volumes gives you a lot of speed.”
Key considerations:
- Startup-friendly: Quick deployment with cost-effective pricing during growth phases
- Complete control: Near bare-metal infrastructure environment management without hyperscaler complexity
- Development speed: Volume decoupling and snapshotting accelerate testing and deployment cycles
- Trust factor: A reputable hosting provider builds customer confidence in your solution
“I feel like I have complete control over the computing resources, the flexibility to configure and optimise them however I need. With other platforms, you never really get that same level of control.”
By choosing xneelo Cloud, Nomia shifted its focus from managing infrastructure constraints to driving development, enabling its vision of making business compliance accessible through innovative document automation technology.
