Battery Ventures Invests $20 Million in SaaS Leader Avalara

WALTHAM, MA and MENLO PARK, CA and HERZILYA, ISRAEL--(Marketwire - Jun 27, 2012) - Battery Ventures, a multi-stage investment firm focused on technology and innovation worldwide, today announced it has led a $20 million growth financing in Avalara, the market leading provider of sales tax automation services in the cloud.

Since its founding nearly a decade ago, Avalara has pioneered the service-based platform for tax automation and emerged as the dominant player in this large market by leading the automation effort for financial, ecommerce, POS and mobility applications for businesses. Today Avalara's SaaS solution provides a complete set of transactional tax compliance services developed specifically to serve the needs of small to mid-sized businesses.

"Avalara exemplifies what we look for in companies as investors: a practical solution to a pressing problem," said Chelsea Stoner, Battery Ventures Partner. "The increasing complexity of sales and use tax regulation has amplified the need for Avalara's SaaS-based offering, as it's truly a pain point businesses can't afford to ignore. Avalara's technology and integration capabilities, along with their impressive customer base, have powered them into the leadership position in this billion dollar market. We believe Avalara has massive potential and we look forward to working with the team to achieve it."

With this funding, Chelsea will join the Avalara Board of Directors.

"Avalara has grown significantly over the past few years and we think the market for our SaaS solution will soon mirror that of payroll automation," said Avalara Founder and CEO Scott McFarlane. "While we were not actively looking for funding, we are confident Battery's investment will help Avalara quickly tap the huge opportunity we see ahead of us. Their impressive record and solid understanding of the SaaS business model make them the right partner to help build the next phase of our business and create a world-class company."

Avalara currently serves tens of thousands of registered users globally and calculates VAT, sales and use taxes on nearly one billion transactions annually. It also manages more than 1.5 million exemption certificates, files approximately 500,000 returns and remits nearly $10 billion in sales and use tax collections per year.

The Company was initially funded by angel investors including The Benaroya Company and Pioneer Venture Partners, and has received additional funding from Sageview Capital.

Avalara
Founded in 2004, Avalara has helped thousands of customers stay focused on their success by providing a fast, easy way to manage indirect taxes that is as accurate and affordable for small and mid-size businesses as it is for large corporations.

Avalara's web-based solution seamlessly integrates into more than 200 accounting and business applications that span all platforms, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), ecommerce, point of sale (POS), mobile (smart phone applications) compliance (tax returns), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Avalara also provides an Application Programming Interface (API) and software development kit (SDK) for customized integrations to virtually any platform.

Avalara is a founding member and Certified Service Provider of the Streamlined Sales Tax initiative and has been named as one of the fastest-growing companies in America. It employs more than 275 professionals at its headquarters on Bainbridge Island, WA and offices in Seattle WA; Irvine, San Diego and Rocklin, CA; Falls Church, VA; and Pune, India.

About Battery
Since 1983, Battery has been investing in technology and innovation worldwide. The firm partners with entrepreneurs and management teams across technology sectors, geographies and stages of a company's life, from seed, start-up and expansion financing, to growth equity and buyouts.

Battery has supported many breakthrough companies around the world, including: Airespace (acquired by Cisco), Akamai Technologies (IPO), Angie's List (IPO), Anobit (acquired by Apple), Bazaarvoice (IPO), Bladelogic (acquired by BMC), ExactTarget (IPO), Groupon (IPO), Guidewire Software (IPO), ITA Software (acquired by Google), MetroPCS (IPO), Netezza (acquired by IBM), Skullcandy (IPO), XtremIO (acquired by EMC) and VSS Monitoring (acquired by Danaher). Its current portfolio includes emerging and high growth SaaS companies such as: Brightree, Coupa Software, Delphix, Kontagent, Marketo, Opscode, SingleHop, Sprinklr, Wayfair and Zerto.

From offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel, Battery manages nearly $4B in committed capital, including its current fund of $750M. For more information, visit www.battery.com. Follow Battery on Twitter.