Global investment giant Vista Equity Partners has announced plans to acquire automated tax compliance software provider avalarain an all-cash deal worth $8.4 billion.
Founded in 2004, Avalara has partnered with companies like Zillow, Pinterest, and Roku to help automate many of the time-consuming processes involved in managing taxes in every market they serve.
Indeed, many governments around the world collect taxes based on where a service is consumed, rather than where the service provider is located – and it is important to know which specific service is taxable and at what rates, this is important for running from a legally compliant company. Add to that the sheer amount of variables involved, such as whether a transaction is B2C or B2B or whether a product is digital or physical, and it can get complicated pretty quickly for businesses looking to stay on the right side of local tax laws.
And that’s why Avalara provides a funnel to local tax databases, so its customers always have access to up-to-date information on sales and use taxes, sales tax and goods and services taxes (GST), excise duties, and more.
Tax times
The company had raised approximately $341 million prior to its IPO 2018, and like many companies in recent times, Avalara has undergone a sort of “correction”, with its market cap dropping about 60% in the past year to $6 billion, though it had risen again to more than $8 billion as of last year. last week. In addition to today’s acquisition news, Avalara also has: published its Q2 financeswhere it reported a 23% year-over-year revenue increase, though operating loss nearly doubled to $56 million over the same period.
Vista notes that the proposed stock purchase price of $93.50 represents a 27% premium to the stock’s closing price exactly one month ago — it’s worth noting, however, that the price is slightly below Avalara’s closing price of $95 on Friday. .
Still, the $8.4 billion price tag is significant and indicative of the broader appeal that automated tax compliance software has in the investment field — in the past eight months alone, we’ve seen German startup Taxdoo raise $64 million, while Irish startup Taxdoo Fonoa locked down $60 million last month.
While the deal is still subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, Vista said it expects the transaction to close before the end of 2022, after which Avalara will be a privately held company.