Avalara Adds $30M to Fuel Sales-Tax Software Growth

Sales-tax software might sound like a boring business. But don’t tell that to the folks at Avalara.

The nearly 10-year-old company, based a short ferry ride away from Seattle on Bainbridge Island, embraces the normally staid world of e-commerce backend services and enterprise software with a fun-loving culture that includes a company “tiki bar” and more bright-orange swag than your eyes can probably handle.

And as the U.S. creeps toward a possible national system for collecting sales taxes, Avalara has also grown into one of the bigger venture-backed bets in the Seattle area.

This week, the company quietly announced that it has raised another $30 million in private investment from previous backers Battery Ventures and Sageview Capital. That puts the company’s total fundraising at more than $100 million since its founding in 2004.

Although it didn’t disclose revenue figures, Avalara said it has grown sales more than 400 percent from 2008 to 2012. In a previous interview, CEO Scott McFarlane told me the company was expecting about $30 million in revenue in 2011.

The company now boasts more than 500 employees worldwide, and recently told The Seattle Times that it added almost 200 employees last year. Avalara also has ramped up its support for international tax rates, and now works in more than 100 countries.

Author: Curt Woodward

Curt covered technology and innovation in the Boston area for Xconomy. He previously worked in Xconomy’s Seattle bureau and continued some coverage of Seattle-area tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft. Curt joined Xconomy in February 2011 after nearly nine years with The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization. He worked in three states and covered a wide variety of beats for the AP, including business, law, politics, government, and general mayhem. A native Washingtonian, Curt earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. As a past president of the state's Capitol Correspondents Association, he led efforts to expand statehouse press credentialing to online news outlets for the first time.